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V 


L I  B  RARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

or    ILLINOIS 

D374s 


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S I G  N  A 


%  ^ionr. 


By  OUIDA. 

AUTHOn   OP    *'  TRICOTRIX,"    "  rASCAUliL,"    "  FOLLE    FARINE,"  ETC. 


"  Getto  una  paluia  al  laarc,  c  lui  va  al  foudo. 
Agli  altri  vcdo  il  piombo  navigare." — Tuscan  Song. 

I  throw  a  palm  iuto  the  aea  :  the  deeps  devour  it. 
Others  throw  lead,  and  lo  !  it  buoyant  sails. 


IN   THREE   VOLUMES. 

VOL.  I.  i 


LONDON : 

CHAPMAN  &  HALL,  193,  PIOCADn.LY 

1875. 

[All  Rights  Reserved.] 


LONDON  : 
BRADBURY,  AGNEW,   &  CO.,  PRINTERS,    WHITEFRIARS. 


&Z3 
D374s 

1  815 

V.  1 

v^j^^^^a^j 

^M 

R^^H; 

^^ 

^K 

^^^HIIki^H 

C3 
CD 
—J 
CO 

S I G  N  A. 

- 

CHAPTER   I. 

CD 


^ 


4^ 


4 


He  was  only  a  little  lad  coming  singing  through 
the  summer  weather ;  singing  as  the  birds  do  in 
the  thickets,  as  the  crickets  do  in  the  wheat  at 
night,  as  the  acacia  bees  do  all  the  day  long  in 
the  high  tree  tops  in  the  sunshine. 

Only  a  little  lad  with  brown  eyes  and  bare  feet, 
and  a  wistful  heart  driving  his  sheep  and  his 
goats,  and  carrying  his  sheaves  of  cane  or  millet, 
and  working  among  the  ripe  grapes  when  the 
time  came,  like  all  the  rest,  here  in  the  bright 
Signa  countr}^ 

Few  people  care  much  for  our  Signa  and  all  it 
has  seen  and  known.     Few  people  even   know 

VOL.  I.  B 


SIGNA. 


anything  of  it  at  all,  except  just  vaguely  as  a 
mere  name.  Assisi  has  her  saint,  and  Perugia 
her  painters,  and  Arezzo  her  poet,  and  Siena 
her  virgin,  and  Settignano  her  sculptor,  and 
Prato  her  great  carmelite,  and  Vespignano  her 
inspired  shepherd,  and  Fiesole  her  angel-monk, 
and  the  village  Vinci  her  mighty  master;  and 
poets  write  of  them  all  for  sake  of  the  dead  fame 
which  they  emhalm.  But  Signa  has  found  no 
poet,  though  her  name  lies  in  the  pages  of  the 
old  chroniclers  like  a  jewel  in  an  old  king's 
tomh,  written  there  ever  since  the  Latin  daj^s 
when  she  was  first  named  Signome — a  standard 
of  war  set  under  the  mountains. 

It  is  so  old  our  Signa,  no  man  could  chronicle 
all  it  has  seen  in  the  centuries ;  but  not  one 
in  ten  thousand  travellers  thinks  about  it.  Its 
people  plait  straw  for  the  world,  and  the  train 
from  the  coast  runs  through  it :  that  is  all  that 
it  has  to  do  with  other  folks. 

Passengers  come  and  go  from  the  sea  to  the 
city,  from  the  city  to  the  sea,  along  the  great  iron 
highway,  and  perhaps  they  glance  at  the  stern, 
ruined  walls,  at  the  white  houses  on  the  cliffs,  at 


SIGNA. 


the  broad  river  with  its  shining  sands,  at  the 
bkie  hills  with  the  poplars  at  their  base,  and  the 
pines  at  the  summits,  and  they  say  to  one  another 
that  this  is  Signa. 

But  it  is  all  that  they  ever  do  do  ;  it  is  only  a 
glance,  then  on  they  go  through  the  green  and 
golden  haze  of  Valdarno.  Signa  is  nothing  to 
them,  only  a  place  that  they  stop  at  a  second. 
And  yet  Signa  is  worthy  of  knowledge. 

She  is  so  ancient  and  so  wise,  and  in  her 
way  so  beautiful  too  ;  and  she  holds  so  many 
great  memories  in  her ;  she  has  so  many  faded 
laurel-boughs  as  women  in  their  years  of  age 
keep  the  dead  rose-leaves  of  their  days  of  love  ; 
and  once  on  a  time  —  in  the  Republic's  time, 
as  her  sons  will  still  turn  from  the  plough  or  rest 
on  the  oar  to  tell  to  a  stranger  with  pride ; — she 
was  a  very  Amazon  and  Artemis  of  the  moun- 
tains setting  her  breast  boldly  against  all  foes, 
and  they  were  many,  who  came  down  over  the 
wild  western  road,  from  the  sea  or  from  the 
Apennines,  with  reddened  steel  and  blazing  torch 
to  harry  and  fire  the  fields,  and  spread  famine 
and  war  to  the  gates  of  Florence. 

E  2 


SIGNA. 


Tliese  days  are  gone. 

The  years  of  its  glory  are  done.  It  is  a 
grey  quiet  place  which  now  strays  down  by 
the  water  and  now  climbs  high  on  the  hill, 
and  faces  the  full  dawn  of  the  day  and  sees 
the  sunset  reflected  in  the  mirror  of  the  river, 
and  is  starry  with  fireflies  in  midsummer,  and  at 
noon  looks  drowsy  in  the  heat  and  seems  to 
dream — being  so  very  old.  The  buttressed  walls 
are  ruins.  The  mass  bell  swings  over  the 
tower  roofs.  The  fortresses  are  changed  to 
farms.  The  vines  climb  where  the  culverins 
blazed.  White  bullocks  and  belled  mules 
tread  to  and  fro  the  tracks  which  the  free 
lances  made;  and  the  peasants  sing  at  their 
ploughs  where  the  hosts  of  the  invaders  once 
thundered. 

Its  ways  are  narrow,  its  stones  are  crooked,  its 
summer  dust  is  dense,  its  winter  mire  is  heavy, 
its  hovels  are  many,  its  people  are  poor — oh  yes, 
no  doubt — but  it  is  beautiful  in  various  ways  and 
worthy  of  a  scholar's  thought  and  of  an  artist's 
tenderness.  Only  the  poet  does  not  come  to 
make  it  quoted  and  beloved  by  the  world  as  one 


SIGNA. 


single   line    on   the   drifting  autumn  leaves  has 
rendered  Vallombrosa. 

Here  where  the  ancient  walls  of  its  citadel  rise 
hoary  and  broken  against  the  blueness  of  the 
sky  ;  there  where  the  arches  of  the  bridges  span 
the  river,  and  the  sand  and  the  shallows  and  the 
straw  that  is  drying  in  summer  shine  together 
yellow  in  the  sun  ;  here  where  under  the  sombre 
pointed  archways  the  little  children  play,  their 
faces  like  the  cherubs  and  the  cupids  of  the 
renaissance ;  there  where  the  cobblers  and  coopers 
and  the  plaiting  maidens  and  the  makers  of  the 
yellow  rush  brooms,  all  work  away  under  lintels, 
and  corbels,  and  carved  beam  timbers,  four  hun- 
dred years  old  if  one  ;  here  where  through  the 
gateways  with  their  portcullises  woven  over  by  the 
spiders,  there  only  pass  the  jDatient  mules  with 
sacks  of  flour,  or  the  hay  carts  dropping  grasses, 
or  the  waggons  of  new  wine ;  there  where  the 
villas  that  were  all  fortresses  in  the  fierce  fighting 
times  of  old,  gleam  white  in  the  light  upon  their 
crests  of  hills  with  their  cypresses  like  sentinels 
around  them,  and  breadths  of  corn  and  vineyards 
traversed  by  green  grass}^  paths,  that  lead  upward 


SIGNA. 


to  where  the  stone  pine  and  the  myrtle  make  sweet 
the  air  together.  In  all  these  Signa  is  beautiful ; 
most  of  all,  of  course,  in  the  long  light  radiant 
summer  when  the  nightingales  are  singing  every- 
where, noon  as  well  as  night  ;  the  summer 
which  seems  to  last  almost  all  the  year,  for  you 
can  only  tell  how  it  comes  and  goes  by  the  coming 
and  the  going  of  the  flowers ;  the  long-lived 
summer  that  is  ushered  in  by  the  daffodils,  those 
golden  chamberlains  of  the  court  of  flowers,  and 
dies,  as  a  king  should,  on  a  purple  bed  of  anemones, 
when  the  bells  of  the  feast  of  the  saints  sound  its 
requiem  from  hill  to  hill.  And  Signa  revels  in 
all  that  brightness  of  the  Tuscan  weather,  and 
all  about  her  seems  singing,  from  the  cicala 
piping  away  all  day  long,  through  the  hottest 
heat,  to  the  mandolines  that  thrill  through  the 
leaves  at  night  as  the  peasants  go  by  strumming 
the  chords  of  their  love-songs.  Summer  and  song 
and  sunshine; — Signa  lies  amidst  them  like 
some  war-bruised  shield  of  a  knight  that  has 
fallen  amongst  the  roses  and  holds  the  nest  of  a 
lark. 

One  day  in  summer  Signa  kept  the  Feast  of 


SIGNA. 


the  Corpus  Domini  with  more  pomp  and  praise 
than  usual.  The  bells  were  ringing  all  over  the 
plain  and  upon  the  hill- sides,  and  the  country 
people  were  coming  in  from  all  the  villages  that 
lie  scattered  like  so  many  robins'  nests  amongst 
the  olives  and  the  maize  plumes  and  the  arbutus 
thickets  everywhere  around ,  Thej  were  like 
figures  out  of  a  Fra  Bartolommeo  or  a  Ghir- 
landajo  as  they  came  down  through  the  rij^e  corn 
and  the  red  poppies  from  the  old  grey  buildings 
up  above ;  in  their  trailing  white  dresses  and 
their  hoods  of  blue,  with  the  unlit  tapers  in 
their  hands,  and  the  little  white-robed  children 
running  before  with  their  chaplets  of  flowers  still 
wet  from  the  dew.  It  was  the  procession  of 
Demeter  transmitted  through  all  the  ages,  though 
it  was  called  the  Feast  of  Christ ;  it  might  have 
been  the  hymns  of  Ceres  that  they  sang,  and 
Virgil  might  have  looked  upon  them  with  a  smile 
of  praise  as  they  passed  through  the  waving  wheat 
and  under  the  boughs  red  with  cherries. 

The  old  faith  lives  under  the  new,  and  the  old 
worship  is  not  dead,  here  in  the  countiy  of  Horace 
and  in   the   fields    where  Proserpine    wandered. 


SIGNA. 


The  people  are  Pagan  still ;  only  now  tliey  call 
it  being  Christian,  and  mingle  together  Cupid 
and  the  Madonna  in  their  songs.* 

It  was  fairest  summer  weather.  There  was  sure 
harvest  and  promise  of  abundant  vintage.  The 
sweet  strong  west  wind  was  blowing  from  the 
sea,  but  not  too  roughly,  only  just  enough  to 
shake  the  scent  out  of  the  acacia  blossoms  and 
fan  open  the  oleanders. 

The  .peasantry  were  in  good  heart  and  trooped 
down  to  the  feast  of  the  Body  of  God  from  the 
loneliest  farmstead  on  the  highest  hill-crest;  and 
from  every  villa  chapel  set  along  the  moun- 
tains, or  amongst  the  green  sea  of  the  valley 
vines,  there  was  a  bell  ringing  above  an  open 
door. 

The  chief  celebration  was  at  Signa,  which  had 
broken  from  its  usual  ways,  and  had  music  on 

*  Si  e  partita  una  nave  dallo  porto, 
Ed  e  partito  lo  mio  struggimento, 
Madre  Maria,  dategli  conforto 
Accio  vada  la  nave  a  salvamento. 
Lo  mare  gli  si  possa  abbonacciare 
E  le  sue  vele  doventin  d'  argento. 
E  tu  Cupido,  che  lo  puo'  aiutare, 
Cogli  sospiri  tuoai  mandagli  il  vento. 

Rispetto  Toscano. 


SIGNA. 


this  great  service  because  a  mighty  bishop  had 
come  on  a  visit  in  its  neighbourhood,  and 
all  its  roads  and  streets  and  lanes  were 
swept  and  garnished  and  watered,  and  at  many 
open  casements  there  were  pots  of  lilies,  white 
and  orange,  and  in  many  dark  archways  groups 
of  Httle  children  on-whose  tiny  shoulders  it  would 
have  seemed  quite  natural  to  see  such  wings  of 
rose  or  azure  as  II  Beato  gave  his  cherubim. 

The  procession  came  out  from  the  white  walls 
above  on  the  cliff,  and  down  the  stee^^  w^ays  of 
the  hill  and  across  the  bridge,  and  through  the 
Lastra  to  the  little  church  of  the  Misericordia. 
There  were  great  silk  banners  waving  heavily; 
gold  fringe  that  shone  and  swayed ;  priests'  vest- 
ments that  gleamed  with  silver  and  colour ; 
masses  of  flowers  and  leaves  borne  aloft ;  curling 
croziers  and  crimson  baldacchini ;  and  then  came 

A  ship  goes  out  from  port, 

And  with  it  goes  my  own  immense  desire. 

Oh,  Mother  Mary,  lend  it  strength  and  comfort, 

So  that  the  ship  may  steer  to  sure  salvation. 

So  that  the  sea  that  bears  it  may  be  stilled, 

And  all  its  sails  become  of  silver  pure. 

And  thou,  dear  Cupid,  who  canst  aid  it  too, 

Breatlie  forth  thy  sighs  and  waft  it  fairest  winds. 

Tuscan  Popular  Song. 


10  SIGN  A. 


all  the  white-clothed  contadmi,  by  tens,  by  twen- 
ties, by  hundreds,  and  the  cherubic  children  sing- 
ing in  the  sun  ;  it  was  Signa  in  the  Middle  Ages 
once  again,  and  Fra  Giovanni  might  have  stood 
by  and  painted  it  all  in  a  choral  book,  or  Mar- 
cillat  have  put  it  in  a  stained  window,  and  have 
illumined  it  with  the  azure  sky  for  its  back- 
ground, and  the  rays  of  the  morning  sun  slanting 
down,  like  beams  that  streamed  straight  to  earth 
from  the  throne  of  God. 

The  procession  came  down  the  hill  and  across 
the  bridge,  with  its  irregular  arches  and  its  now 
shallow  green  water  shining  underneath,  and  on 
its  sands  the  straw  lying  drying,  and  beyond  it 
the  near  hills  with  their  dusky  pines,  and  the 
white  streaks  where  the  quarries  were  cut,  and 
the  blue  haze  of  the  farther  mountains. 

All  the  people  were  chaunting  the  Laus  Deo — 
chaunting  with  chests  made  strong  by  the  moun- 
tain air,  and  lips  made  tuneful  by  the  inheritance 
of  melody;  men  and  women  and  children  were 
all  singing,  from  the  old  white-haired  bishop  who 
bore  the  host,  to  the  four-year-old  baby  that  trod 
on  the  hem  of  its  mother's  dress. 


SIGN  A.  11 


But  above  all  the  voices  there  rose  one  sweetest 
and  clearest  of  all,  and  gomg  up  into  heaven,  as 
it  seemed,  as  a  lark's  does  on  a  summer  morning. 
He  was  onl}^  a  little  fellow  that  sang — a  little 
bo}^  of  the  Lastra  a  Signa,  poorer  than  all  the 
rest ;  with  his  white  frock,  clean,  but  very  coarse, 
and  a  wreath  of  scarlet  poppies  on  his  auburn 
curls ;  a  very  little  fellow,  ten  years  old  at  most, 
with  thin  brown  limbs  and  a  lean  wistful  face, 
and  the  straight  brows  of  his  country,  with  dark 
eyes  full  of  dreams  beneath  them,  and  naked  feet 
that  could  be  fleet  as  a  hare's  over  the  dry 
yellow  grass  or  the  crooked  sharp  stones. 

He  was  always  hungry,  and  never  very  strong, 
and  certainly  simple  and  poor  as  a  creature  could 
be,  and  he  knew  what  a  beating  meant  as  well 
as  any  dog  about  the  farm.  He  lived  with 
people  who  tlu'ashed  him  oftener  than  they  fed 
him.  He  was  almost  always  scolded,  and  bore 
the  burden  of  others'  faults.  He  had  never  had 
a  whole  shirt  or  a  pair  of  shoes  in  all  his  hfe. 
He  kept  goats  on  one  of  the  dusky  sweet-scented 
hillsides  above  Signa,  and  bore,  Hke  them,  the 
wind  and  the  weather,  the  scorch  and  the  storm. 


L'2  SIGNA. 


And  yet,  by  God's  grace  and  the  glory  of  child- 
hood, he  was  happy  enough  as  he  went  over  the 
bridge  and  through  the  white  dust,  chaunting 
his  psalm  in  the  rear  of  the  priests,  in  the  cere- 
monies of  the  Corpus  Domini. 

For  the  music  was  in  his  head  and  in  his 
heart ;  and  the  millions  of  leaves  and  the  glancing 
water  seemed  to  be  singing  with  him,  and  he  did 
not  feel  the  flints  under  his  feet,  or  the  heat  of 
them,  as  he  went  singing  out  all  his  little  soul 
to  the  river  and  the  sky  and  the  glad  June  sun- 
shine, and  he  w^as  quite  happy,  though  he  was 
of  no  more  moment  in  the  great  human  world 
than  any  one  of  the  brown  grilli  in  the  wheat, 
or  tufts  of  rosemary  in  the  quarry  side ;  and  he 
did  not  feel  the  sharpness  of  the  stones  under- 
neath his  feet  or  the  scorch  of  them  as  he  went 
barefoot  along  the  street,  because  he  was  always 
looking  up  at  the  brightness  of  the  sky,  and 
expecting  to  see  it  open  and  to  see  the  faces 
of  curly-headed  winged  children  peep  out  from 
behind  the  sunrays  as  they  did  in  the  old  pictures 
in  the  villa  chapels. 

The  priests  told  him  he  would  see  them  for 


SIGN  A. 


a  certainty  if  lie  were  good ;  and  he  had  been 
good,  or  at  least  had  tried  to  be,  but  the  heavens 
never  had  opened  yet. 

It  is  hard  work  to  be  good  when  you  are  very 
little  and  very  hungr}',  and  have  many  sticks  to 
beat  you,  and  no  mother's  lips  to  kiss  you. 

But  he  tried  in  his  own  small  wa3^  When 
he  carried  the  bright  blue  plums  to  the  market, 
not  to  taste  even  one  when  his  mouth  was 
parched  with  the  dust  and  the  sun ;  to  let  his 
reed-flute  lie  mute  while  he  searched  for  a 
straying  kid;  to  tell  the  truth,  though  it  cost 
him  a  thrashing;  to  leave  his  black  bread  un- 
touched on  a  feast  morning,  though  he  was  so 
hungry,  because  he  was  going  to  confession ;  to 
forbear  from  pulling  the  ripe  grapes  as  he  went 
along  the  little  grass  paths  through  the  vines ; — 
these  were  the  things  that  were  so  hard,  and  that 
he  tried  his  best  to  do,  because  in  his  little  dim 
mind  he  saw  what  was  just,  and  in  his  loneli- 
ness endeavoured  with  all  his  might  to  follow  it, 
that  he  might  see  the  faces  of  the  angels  some 
day;  and  he  wondered  now  why  he  could  not 
see  the  cherubs  through  the  blue  smiling  sky. 


14  SIGNA. 


as  the  old  fresco-painters  had  done  who  did  not 
want  it  half  so  much  as  he  did,  because  no 
doubt  the  painters  were  wise  men  and  knew  a 
great  deal,  and  were  very  happy,  and  were  not 
like  him,  who  was  always  wanting  to  know  every- 
thing, and  could  never  get  any  one  to  tell. 

The  old  painters  would  have  painted  him,  and 
would  have  made  a  cherub  of  him,  with  his 
wreath  of  poppies  and  his  wondering  eyes  and 
his  little  singing  mouth,  and  would  have  taken 
all  the  leanness  out  of  his  face,  and  the  paleness 
out  of  his  cheeks,  and  the  darns  out  of  his  little 
coarse  frock,  and  would  have  made  his  field- 
flowers  roses  of  paradise,  and  would  have  glorified 
him,  and  made  him  a  joy  to  the  wondering  world 
for  ever. 

But  he  did  not  know  that ;  he  did  not  know 
that  the  painters  never  saw  any  other  little 
angels  than  just  such  foot-tired  and  sun-tanned 
little  angels  as  he,  which  their  genius  lifted  uj) 
and  transfigured  into  the  likeness  of  the  children 
of  God. 

He  did  not  know  that  Fra  Angelico  would 
have  kissed  him,  and  Eaffaelle  would  have  put 


SIGNA,  15 


liim  for  ever  in  the  internal  sunshine  of  the 
Loggie,  with  gold  rays  about  his  head  and  the 
lilies  of  Mary  in  his  hands. 

He  onl}^  looked  up — in  vain — for  the  cherubs 
in  the  shinmg  morning  skies,  and  was  sorr}^  that 
he  was  not  good  enough  to  have  the  right  to  see 
them;  and  yet  was  glad  at  heart  as  he  went 
carrying  his  taper  in  the  rear  of  the  silken  ban- 
ners and  the  silvered  robes  and  the  chaunting 
contadini,  over  the  green  sunlightened  Arno 
water,  with  the  midsummer  corn  blowing  on  all 
the  hills  around,  and  the  west  wind  bringing 
the  salt  of  the  sea  with  it  to  strengthen  the 
young  bud- clusters  of  the  vine. 

Glad — because  he  was  so  young,  and  because 
he  was  sure  of  one  creature  that  loved  him,  and 
because  the  music  thrilled  him  to  his  heart's 
delight,  and  because  it  was  a  happiness  to  him 
only  to  sing,  as  it  is  to  the  thrush  in  the  depths 
of  the  woods  when  the  day  dawns,  or  to  the 
nightingale  when  she  drinks  the  dew  in  heats  of 
noon  off  the  snow  of  a  magnolia  flower. 

He  had  a  Httle  lute  of  his  own,  given  to  him 
by  the  only  hand  that  ever  gave  him  anything. 


16  SIGNA. 


Where  he  lived  he  might  not  play  it  on  pain  of 
its  being  broken ;  but  upon  the  hills  he  did,  and 
along  the  country  roads :  and  when  people  were 
asleep  in  their  beds  in  Signa,  they  would  be 
awakened  by  notes  that  were  not  the  birds' 
rippling  up  the  street  in  the  sweet  silent  dark, 
and  going  higher  and  higher  and  higher — it  was 
only  the  little  fellow  playing  and  singing  as  he 
went  along  in  the  dusk  of  the  dawn  to  his  work. 

In  the  Lastra  no  one  thought  anything  of  it. 
In  any  other  country,  lattices  would  have  been 
opened  and  heads  hung  out  and  breaths  of  deep 
pleasure  held  to  listen  better,  because  the  child's 
music  was  wonderful  in  its  way,  or  at  least  would 
have  been  so  elsewhere.     But  here  there  was  so 
much  music  everywhere  :  nobody  noticed  much. 
It  was  no  more  than  a  hundred  other  lutes  strum- 
ming at   cottage  doors,  than   a   thousand   other 
•stornelli  or  rispetti  sung  as  the  oxen  were  yoked. 
There  is  always  song  somewhere. 
As  the  wine-waggon  creaks  down  the  hill,  the 
waggoner  will  chaunt  to  the  corn  that  grows  upon 
either  side  of  him.     As  the  miller's  mules  cross 
the  bridge,  the  lad  as  he  cracks  his  whip  will  hum 


ISIGNA.  17 


to  the  blowing  alders.  In  the  red  clover,  the 
labourers  will  whet  then*  scythes  and  sickles  to  a 
trick  of  melody.  In  the  quiet  evenings  a  kyrie 
eleison  will  rise  from  the  thick  leaves  that  hide  a 
village  chapel.  On  the  hills  the  goatherd,  high 
in  air,  amongst  the  arbutus  branches,  will  scatter 
on  the  lonely  mountain  side  stanzas  of  purest 
rhj^thm.  By  the  sea-shore,  where  Shelley  died, 
the  fisherman,  rough  and  salt,  and  weatherworn, 
will  string  notes  of  sweetest  measure  under  the 
tamarisk  tree  on  his  mandoline.  But  the  poetry 
and  the  music  float  on  the  air  Uke  the  leaves  of 
roses  that  blossom  in  a  solitude,  and  drift  away 
to  die  upon  the  breeze  :  there  is  no  one  to  notice 
the  fragrance,  there  is  no  one  to  gather  the  leaves. 

The  songs  of  the  people  now  are  like  their 
fireflies  in  summer.  They  make  night  beautiful 
all  over  the  dusky  hills,  and  the  seas  of  vine,  and 
the  blowing  fields  of  maize,  in  a  million  lonel}^ 
places  of  the  mountains  and  the  plains.  But  the 
fireflies  are  born  in  the  corn  and  die  in  it ;  few 
eyes  see  their  love-fires,  except  those  of  the 
nightingale  and  the  shrew  mouse. 

Theocritus  cried  aloud  on  his  Sicilian  muses, 

VOL.  I.  c 


18  SIGNA. 


and  the  world  heard  him  and  has  treasured  the 
voice  of  his  sweet  complaining. 

But  the  muse  of  these  people  now  lives  with 
the  corncrake  under  the  wheat,  and  the  swallow 
under  the  house-eaves,  and  is  such  a  simple 
natural  home -horn  thing  that  they  think  of  her 
no  more  than  the  firefly  does  of  her  luminance. 
And  so  they  have  no  Theocritus,  but  only  ever- 
renewing  hursts  of  song  everywhere  as  the  millet 
grows  ripe,  and  the  lemon-tree  flowers,  and  the 
red  poppies  leap  with  the  corn. 

Often  they  do  not  know  what  they  sing : — Does 
the  firefly  know  that  she  burns  ? 

This  little  fellow  did  not  know  what  he 
sang. 

He  did  not  know  what  he  was. 

At  home  he  was  always  being  told  that  he  had 
no  right  to  exist  at  all ;  perhaps  he  had  not ;  he 
did  not  know. 

Himself,  he  thought  God  had  made  him  to 
sing,  made  him  just  for  that ;  as  he  made 
the  finches  and  nightingales.  But  he  did  not 
tell  any  one  so.  At  home  they  would  have 
asked  him  what   should  the   great    God    want 


SIGNA.  19 


with  his  puny  oat  pipe.  Toto  coukl  make 
as  good  a  noise  cutting  a  reed  in  the  fields  any 
day. 

Perhaps  Toto  coukl.  He  thought  his  own  voice 
better,  but  he  was  not  sure.  He  was  onl}'  glad 
to  sing,  because  all  the  world  seemed  singing 
with  him,  and  all  the  sky  seemed  one  vast  space 
of  sweetest  sound — as,  perhaps,  it  seems  to  a 
bird,  who  knows  ? 

When  he  went  to  bed  in  the  hay  he  could  hear 
the  nightingales  and  the  owls  and  the  grilli 
singing  all  together  in  the  trees  behind  the 
village  and  in  the  fields  that  stretched  by  the 
river ;  and  in  the  dusk  of  the  dawn  when  he  ran 
out  with  his  little  bare  feet,  dripping  with  dew, 
there  were  a  million  little  voices  hymning  in  the 
day.  That  was  what  he  heard.  Other  peoi)le, 
no  doubt,  heard  cart-wheels,  and  grinding  mills, 
and  the  scolding  of  women,  and  the  barking  of 
dogs,  and  the  creaking  of  doors,  and  a  thousand 
other  discordant  things  ;  but  to  him  the  world 
was  full  of  the  singing  birds  and  the  humming 
insects,  and  the  blue  heavens  teemed  with  a 
choir  of  angels  :  he  could  not  see  them,  but  he 

c  2 


20  SIGNA. 


heard  them,  and  he  knew  they  were  near,  and 
that  was  enough  :  he  coukl  wait. 

"Do  you  hear  anythmg  up  there  ?  "  the  other 
children  wouki  ask  him,  when  he  stood  listening 
with  his  eyes  lifted,  and  they  could  not  see  so 
much  as  a  bird,  and  he  would  look  back  to  them 
quite  sorrowfully. 

"  Do  you  not  hear,  too  ?    You  are  deaf  then  !  '* 

But  the  children  of  Signa  would  not  allow  that 
they  were  deaf,  and  pelted  and  fought  him  for 
saying  so.  Deaf,  indeed  !  when  it  was  he  who 
was  the  simpleton  hearing  a  bird  sing  where 
none  was. 

Were  they  deaf?  or,  was  he  dreaming? 

The  children  of  Signa  and  he  never  agreed 
which  was  which. 

It  is  the  old  eternal  quarrel  between  the  poet 
and  the  world ;  and  the  children  were  like  the 
world,  they  were  strong  in  numbers  ;  since  they 
could  see  no  bird,  the}^  would  have  it  there  could 
be  no  music,  and  they  boxed  his  ears  to  cure 
him  of  hearing  better  than  his  neighbours. 

Only  it  did  not  cure  him. 

His  angels  sang  above   him  this   day  of  the 


8IGNA.  21 


Corpus  Domini,  and  lie  did  not  feel  the  sun  hot 
on  his  bare  head,  nor  the  stones  sharp  under  his 
bare  feet,  and  he  did  not  remember  that  he  was 
hungr}^,  and  that  he  had  been  beaten  that  morning, 
until  the  music  ceased  suddenly,  and  he  dropped 
to  earth  out  of  the  arms  of  the  angels. 

Then  he  felt  his  bruises,  and  the  want  of  food 
gnawed  in  him,  and  he  gathered  up  his  little 
white  acol3'te's  dress  and  ran  as  quickly  as  he 
could,  the  withering  poppies  shaking  off  his 
hair. 

He  was  only  Pippa's  child. 


CHAPTEK    II. 

There  is  wild  weather  in  winter  at  Signa. 
The  mountain  streams  brim  over  and  the  great 
historic  river  sweeps  out  in  full  flood,  and  the 
hitter  Alpine  wind  tears  like  a  living  thing  oyer 
the  hills  and  across  the  plain.  Not  seldom  the 
low-lying  fields  become  sheets  of  dull  tawny  water, 
and  the  little  hamlets  amongst  them  are  all 
flooded,  and  from  the  clock-towers  the  tolling 
beUs  cry  aloud  for  succour,  while  the  low,  white 
houses  seem  to  float  like  boats. 

In  these  winters,  if  the  harvests  before  have 
been  bad,  the  people  suffer  much.  They  have 
little  or  no  bread,  and  they  eat  the  raw  grass 
even  sometimes.     The  country  looks  like  a  lake 


SIGNA.  23 


in  such  weather  when  the  floods  are  on;  only 
for  ships  there  are  churches,  and  the  Hghthouses 
are  the  trees  ;  and  like  rocky  islands  in  all  direc- 
tions the  village  roofs  and  the  villa  walls  gleam 
red  and  shine  grey  in  the  rain.  It  is  only 
a  short  winter,  and  the  i^eople  know  that 
when  the  floods  rise  and  spread,  then  they 
will  find  compensation,  later  on,  for  them  in 
the  doubled  richness  of  grass  and  measure  of 
corn. 

Still,  it  is  hard  to  see  the  finest  steer  of  the 
herd  dashed  a  lifeless  dun-coloured  mass  against 
the  foaming  piles  of  the  bridge  ;  it  is  hard  to 
see  the  young  trees  and  the  stacks  of  hay 
whirled  together  against  each  other ;  it  is 
hard  to  watch  the  broken  crucifix  and  the 
cottage  bed  hurled  like  dead  leaves  on  the  waste 
of  waters;  it  is  hardest  of  all  to  see  the  little 
curly  head  of  a  drowned  child  drift  with  the 
boughs  and  the  sheep  and  the  empty  hencoop 
and  the  torn  house  door  down  the  furious  course 
of  the  river. 

Signa  has  seen  this  through  a  thousand  winters 
and  more  in  more  or  less  violence,  and  looked  on 


24  SIGNA. 


untouclied  herself;  high  set  on  her  hills  like  a 
fortress,  as  indeed  she  was,  in  the  old  republican 
days. 

In  one  of  these  wild  brief  winters,  in  a  drench- 
ing night  of  rain,  a  woman  came  down  on  foot 
along  the  high  road  that  runs  from  the  mountains, 
the  old  post  road  by  which  one  can  travel  to  the 
sea,  only  no  one  now  ever  takes  that  way.  In 
sunshine  and  mild  weather  it  is  a  glorious  road, 
shelving  sheer  to  the  river  vallej^  on  one  side  and 
on  the  other  hung  over  with  bold  rocks  and 
bluffs  dusky  with  ilex  and  pine ;  and  it  winds 
and  curves  and  descends  and  changes  as  only  a 
mountain  road  can  do,  with  the  smell  of  its  rose- 
mary and  its  wild  myrtle  sweet  at  every  turn. 
But  on  a  wmter's  night  of  rain  it  is  very  dreary, 
desolate  and  dark. 

The  woman  stumbled  down  it  as  best  she 
might. 

She  had  come  on  foot  by  short  stages  all  the 
way  from  the  sea  some  forty  miles  over  hill  and 
plain.  She  carried  a  bundle  Avith  her,  and  never 
let  go  her  hold  on  it  however  wildly  the  wind 
seized  and  shook  her,  nor  however  roughly  the 


SIGNA.  25 


rain  blew  lier  blind.  For  the  biuidle  was  a 
child. 

Now  and  then  she  stopped  and  leaned  against 
the  rocks  or  the  stem  of  a  tree  and  opened  her 
cloak  and  looked  at  it ;  her  ej^es  had  grown  so 
used  to  the  thick  darkness  that  she  could  see  the 
round  of  its  little  red  cheek  and  the  curve  of  its 
folded  fist  and  the  line  of  its  closed  ej^elashes. 
She  would  stop  a  minute  sometimes  and  bend 
her  head  and  listen,  if  the  wind  lulled,  to  the 
breathing  of  its  parted  lips  set  close  against  her 
breast ;  tlien  she  would  take  breath  herself  and 
go  onward. 

The  child  was  a  3'ear  old,  and  a  boy,  and  a 
hea\y  weight,  and  she  was  not  a  strong  woman 
now%  though  she  had  once  been  so ;  and  she  had 
walked  all  the  way  from  the  sea.  She  began 
to  grow  dizzy,  and  to  feel  herself  stumble  like  a 
footsore  mule  that  has  been  driven  until  he  is 
stupid  and  has  lost  his  sureness  of  step  and  his 
capacity  for  safety  of  choice.  She  was  drenched 
through,  and  her  clothes  hung  in  a  soaked  dead 
weight  upon  her.  Even  with  all  her  care  she 
could  not  keep  the  child  quite  dry. 


26  8IGNA. 


Somewhere  through  the  darkness  she  could 
hear  bells  tollmg  the  hour.  It  was  eight  o'clock, 
and  she  had  been  in  hopes  to  reach  Signa  before 
the  night  fell. 

The  boy  began  to  stir  and  cry. 

She  stopped  and  loosened  her  poor  garments 
and  gave  him  her  breast.  When  he  grew  paci- 
fied, she  stumbled  on  again;  the  child  was 
quiet;  the  rain  beat  on  her  naked  bosom,  but 
the  child  was  content  and  quiet;  so  she  went 
on  so. 

Sometimes  she  shivered.  She  could  not  help 
that.  She  wondered  where  the  town  was.  She 
could  not  see  the  lights.  In  earlier  years  she 
had  known  the  country  step  by  step  as  only 
those  can  who  are  born  in  the  air  of  it  and 
tread  it  daily  in  their  ways  of  work.  But  now 
she  had  forgotten  how  the  old  road  ran.  Her 
girlhood  seemed  so  far  away ;  so  very,  very  far. 
And  yet  she  was  only  twenty-two  years  of  age. 

But  then  life  does  not  count  by  years.  Some 
suffer  a  lifetime  in  a  day,  and  so  grow  old  between 
the  rising  and  the  setting  of  a  sun. 

She  had  gone  over  the  road  so  many  times  in 


SIGNA.  27 


the  warm  golden  dawns  and  the  white  bahn}^ 
nights,  plaiting  her  wisps  of  straw,  bare-headed 
in  the  welcome  air,  and  with  a  poppy  or  a  briar- 
rose  set  behind  her  ear  for  vanity's  sake  rather 
than  for  the  flower's.  But  she  had  been  long 
away — though  she  was  so  young — at  least  it 
seemed  very  long  to  her,  and  with  absence  she 
had  lost  all  the  peasant's  instinct  of  safe  move- 
ment in  the  dark,  which  is  as  siu'e  as  an  owl's 
or  an  ass's,  and  comes  by  force  of  long  habit 
and  long  treading  of  the  same  familiar  way.  She 
was  not  sure  of  her  road ;  not  even  sure  of  her 
footing.  The  wind  terrified  her,  and  she  heard 
the  loud  surge  of  the  Arno  waters  below;  beating 
and  foaming  in  flood.  She  was  weak  too  from 
long  fatigue,  and  the  weight  of  the  water  in  her 
clothes,  and  of  the  child  in  her  arms,  pulled  her 
earthward. 

No  one  passed  by  her. 

Every  one  was  housed,  except  sentries  on  the 
church-towers  watching  the  rising  of  the  waters, 
and  shepherds  getting  their  cattle  upward  from 
the  low-lying  pastures  on  to  the  hills. 

She  was  all  alone  on  the  old  sea  road,  and  if 


28  SIGNA. 


she  were  near  the  lights  of  Sienna  she  could  not 
see  them  for  the  steam  and  mist  of  the  furious 
rain. 

But  she  walked  on  resolutely,  stumbling  often 
over  the  great  loose  stones.  She  did  not  care 
for  herseK.  Life  was  over  for  her.  She  would 
have  been  glad  to  lie  down  and  die  where  she 
was.  But  if  the  boy  were  not  under  some  roof 
before  morning,  she  knew  he  would  perish  of 
cold  in  her  arms.  For  she  could  give  him  so 
little  warmtli  herself.  She  shivered  in  all  her 
veins  and  all  her  limbs ;  and  she  was  soaked 
through  like  a  drowned  thing,  and  he  was  Avet 
also.  So  she  went  on,  growing  frightened, 
though  her  temper  was  bold,  and  onl}^  keeping 
her  courage  to  move  by  feeling  now  and  then  as 
she  went  for  the  fair  face  of  him  at  her  breast. 
But  the  touch  of  her  hand  made  him  cr}^ — it  was 
so  cold — and  so  even  that  comfort  ceased  for  her, 
and  she  could  only  pray  in  a  dumb  unconscious 
way  to  God  to  keep  the  numbness  out  of  her 
arms  lest  they  should  drop  the  boy  as  she  went. 

At  a  turn  in  the  road  there  is  a  crucifix— a 
wooden  one  set  in  the  stone. 


SIGNA.  29 


She  sat  down  a  moment  under  it,  and  rested 
as  well  as  she  could,  and  tried  to  think  of  heaven. 
But  the  wind  would  not  let  her.  It  tore  the 
covering  off  her  head,  and  tossed  her  long  hau- 
about;  it  scourged  her  with  a  storm  of  snapt 
boughs ;  it  stung  her  with  a  shower  of  shrivelled 
leaves  ;  it  pierced  through  and  through  her  poor 
thin  clothes.  She  prayed  a  little  as  well  as  she 
could  in  the  torment  of  it,  but  it  went  round  and 
round  her  in  so  mad  a  whirl  that  she  could  not 
remember  how  the  words  should  go.  Only  she 
remembered  to  keep  the  child  warm,  as  a  mother- 
sheep  sets  her  body  between  the  lamb  and  the 
drifts  of  the  snow. 

After  a  while  he  began  to  cry. 

Do  what  she  would  she  could  not  keep  a  sense 
of  cliilliness  and  discomfort  from  reaching  him  ; 
he  wanted  the  ease  and  rest  of  some  little  cosy 
bed;  her  cramped  arms  held  him  ill,  and  the 
old  shawl  that  wrapped  him  up  was  wet  and 
cold. 

She  murmured  little  words  to  him,  and  tried 
even  to  sing  some  scrap  of  old  song ;  but  her 
voice  failed  her,  and  the   cliild  was  not  to  be 


30  SIGNA. 


comforted.  He  cried  more,  and  stirred  rest- 
lessly. With  great  effort  she  bent  her  stif- 
fened knees,  and  rose,  and  got  on  her  way  again. 
The  rocking  movement,  as  she  carried  him  and 
walked  on,  stilled  him  a  little. 

She  wished  that  she  had  dared  to  turn  up  a 
path  higher  on  the  mountain  that  she  knew  of, 
which  she  had  passed  as  the  Ave  Maria  bell  had 
rung.     But  she  had  not  dared. 

She  was  not  sure  who  was  there ;  what  wel- 
come or  what  curse  she  might  get.  He  who  was 
certain  to  be  master  there  now,  had  always  been 
fierce  with  her  and  stern ;  and  he  might  be 
married,  and  new  faces  be  there  too — she  could 
not  tell ;  five  years  were  time  enough  for  so  much 
change. 

She  had  not  dared  go  up  the  path ;  now  that 
it  was  miles  behind  her  she  wished  that  she  had 
taken  it.  But  it  was  too  late  now.  The  town 
she  knew,  must  be  much  the  nearer  of  the  two, 
now  that  she  had  come  down  so  far;  so  she 
went  onward  in  the  face  of  the  blinding  rain- 
storm. She  would  go  up  in  the  morning,  she 
thought,  and  tell  him  the   truth ;    if  he   were 


SIGNA.  31 


brutal  to  herself,  he  would  not  let  the  child 
starve  ;  she  would  go  up  in  the  morning — so  she 
said,  and  walked  onward. 

Her  foot  had  slipped  a  dozen  times,  and  she 
had  recovered  her  footing  and  gone  on  safe. 
Once  again  in  the  dark  she  slipped,  her  foot  slid 
farther  on  loose  wet  earth,  a  stone  gave  way, 
she  clutched  the  child  with  one  arm,  and  flung 
out  the  other — she  could  not  see  what  she 
caught  at  in  the  dark.  It  was  a  bush  of  furze. 
The  furze  tore  her  skin,  and  gave  way.  She 
sHpped  farther  and  farther,  faster  and  faster ; 
the  soil  was  so  drenched,  and  the  stones  were 
unloosed.  She  remembered  the  road  enough  to 
know  that  she  was  going  down,  down,  down, 
over  the  edge.  She  clasped  the  child  with  both 
arms  once  more,  and  was  borne  down  through 
the  darkness  to  her  death. 

She  knew  nothing  more ;  the  dark  night 
closed  in  on  her ;  she  lost  the  sound  of  the 
ringing  bells,  and  she  ceased  to  feel  the  burden 
of  the  child. 


CHAPTER  III. 


An  hour  later  two  men  came  with  lanthorns 
into  the  fields  that  lie  between  the  rough  vine- 
yards underneath  the  road  from  the  sea.  They 
had  sheep  there,  which  they  were  going  to  drive 
into  the  town  in  the  morning,  and  they  were 
afraid  that  the  flock,  terrified  in  the  winds  and 
rains,  might  have  broken  loose,  and  strayed 
across  the  iron  rails  of  the  other  road  that  runs 
by  the  river,  and  might  get  crushed  under  the 
wheels  of  the  night  trains  running  from  the  west. 

As  they  w^ent  they  stumbled  against  something 
on  the  ground,  and  lowered  their  lights  to  look. 

There  was  a  broken  bmmble-bush,  and  some 
crushed  ferns,  and  a  thing  that  had  fallen  from 


SIGNA.  33 


the  height  above  on  the  soakmg  soil.  By  their 
dim  lanthorns  they  saw  that  the  thing  was  a 
woman,  and  bending  the  light  fuller  on  her  as 
well  as  they  could  for  the  rain,  they  saw  that 
she  had  been  stunned  or  killed  by  the  fall. 

There  was  a  great  stone  on  which  the  back  of 
her  head  had  struck.  She  la}^  face  upward,  with 
her  limbs  stretched  out ;  her  right  arm  was  close 
round  the  body  of  a  living  child  ;  her  breast  was 
bare. 

The  child  was  breathing  and  asleep  ;  he  had 
fallen  upon  his  mother,  and  so  had  escaped 
unhurt. 

The  men  had  been  born  peasants,  and  they 
were  used  to  wring  the  throats  of  trapped  birds 
and  to  take  lambs  from  their  mothers  with  small 
pity.  They  lifted  the  boy  with  some  roughness 
and  some  trouble  from  the  stiffening  arm  that 
enclosed  him  ;  he  began  to  wail  and  moan ;  he 
was  very  wet  and  miserable,  and  he  said  a  little 
word  which  was  a  call  for  his  mother,  like  the 
pipe  of  a  little  bird  that  has  fluttered  out 
of  the  nest,  and  lies  cold  on  the  grass  and 
frightened. 


34  SIGNA. 


One  of  them  took  him  up,  and  wrapped  his 
cloak  across  the  little  sobbing  mouth. 

The  other  knelt  down,  and  tried  to  make 
his  light  burn  better,  and  laid  his  hand  on  the 
woman's  breast  to  feel  for  a  pulse  of  life. 
But  she  was  quite  dead.  He  did  what  he  could 
to  call  back  life,  but  it  was  all  in  vain ;  at 
length  he  covered  her  breast,  and  stared  up  at 
his  fellow. 

"  This  looks  like  Pippa,"  he  said,  slowly, 
with  a  sound  as  of  awe  in  his  voice. 

The  other  lowered  his  light  too  and  looked. 

"  Yes,  it  is  like  Pippa,"  he  said,  slowly,  also. 

Then  they  were  both  silent  for  some  moments, 
the  lanthorn  light  blinking  in  the  rain. 

"  Yes,  it  is  Pippa  ;  yes,  certainly,  it  is  Pippa," 
said  the  first  one  stupidly ;  and  he  ran  his  hand 
with  a  sort  of  shudder  over  the  outline  of  her 
features  and  her  form. 

The  one  who  held  the  child  turned  his  light 
on  the  little  wet  face ;  the  baby  ceased  to  cry, 
and  opened  his  big,  dark,  wondering  eyes  at  the 
flame. 

"  And  whose  byblow  is  this  ?  "  said  he. 


SIGNA.  35 


"  The  devil  knows,"  said  he  who  knelt  by 
the  mother.  "But  it  is  Pippa.  Look  here 
on  her  left  breast— do  you  see?  there  is  the 
little  three-cornered  scar  of  the  wound  I  gave 
her  with  my  knife,  at  the  wine  fair,  that  day." 

The  other  looked  closer  while  the  rain  beat  on 
the  white  cold  chest  of  the  woman. 
"  Yes,  it  must  be  Pippa." 

Then  they  were  both  silent  again  a  little,  for 
they  were  Pippa's  brothers. 

"  Let  us  go  and  tell  them  in  the  Lastra,  and 
get  the  bier,"  said  the  one  who  knelt  by  her, 
getting  up  on  to  his  feet,  with  a  sullen  dazed 
gloom  on  his  dark  face. 

"And  leave  her  here  ?  "  said  the  one  who  had 
the  child. 

"Why  not?  nobody  will  run  away  with  the 
dead  !  " 

"  But  this  little  beast — what  can  one  do  with 
him  ?  " 

"  Carry  him  to  yom-  wife." 
"  There  are  too  man}-  at  home." 
"  She    has    one    of    his   age ;    she    can   take 
him." 


D  2 


36  ^IGNA. 


*'  She  will  never  touch  Pippa's  boy." 

"  Give  him  to  me,  then,  and  stay  you  here." 

"  No,  that  I  dare  not — the  foul  fiend  might 
come  after  her." 

"  The  foul  fiend  take  your  terrors.  Let  us 
get  into  the  Lastra  ;  we  can  see  then.  We  must 
tell  the  Misericordia,  and  get  the  bier " 

"  There  is  no  such  haste ;  she  is  stone  dead. 
What  a  pipe  this  brat  has  !  One  Y>^ould  think  it 
was  a  pig  with  the  knife  in  its  throat." 

"  It  is  very  cold.  Who  would  have  thought  it 
could  have  lived — such  a  fall  as  that,  and  such 
a  night !  " 

"  It  lives  because  nobody  wants  it.  She  had 
no  gold  about  her,  had  she  ? 

"I  do  not  know." 

The  one  who  held  the  child  stooped  over  the 
dead  woman  awhile,  then  rose  with  a  sigh  of 
regret — 

" Not  a  stiver;  I  have  felt  her  all  over." 

"  Then  she  must  have  done  ill  these  five  years." 

"  Yes — and  yet  so  handsome,  too.  But  Pippa 
never  plaited  even." 

"  Nay,  never — poor  Pippa  !  " 


SIGNA. 


So  they  muttered,  plodding  over  the  broken 
heavy  ground,  with  the  sound  of  the  swollen 
river  in  their  ears  and  their  lanthorn  lights 
gleaming  through  the  steam  of  the  rain.  In  the 
noise  of  the  waters  the  child  sobbed  and 
screamed  unheard.  The  man  had  tossed  him 
over  his  shoulder  as  he  carried  the  new-born 
lambs,  onty  with  a  little  less  care. 

They  clambered  up  into  the  road  and  tramped 
through  the  slough  of  mud  into  the  town.  The 
woman  had  drawn  nigh  to  the  upper  town  by  a 
dozen  j^ards,  when  her  foot  had  slipped,  and  she 
had  reeled  over  to  her  death.  But  the  feet  of 
the  shepherds  were  bare,  and  kept  sure  hold,  like 
the  feet  of  goats.  They  tramped  on,  quick, 
through  the  crooked  streets  and  over  the  bridge  ; 
the  river  had  run  high,  and  along  the  banks,  and 
on  the  flat  roofs  of  the  towers  there  were  the 
lights  burning  of  the  men  who  watched  for  the 
flood.  They  heard  how  loud  and  swiftly  the 
river  was  running  as  they  went  over  the  bridge 
and  down  into  the  irregular  twisting  street,  and 
imder  the  old  noble  walls  of  the  lower  village  of 
the  Lastra. 


38  SIGNA. 


The  one  wlio  carried  the  child  opened  a 
rickety  door  in  the  side  of  a  tumbledown  house, 
and  climbed  a  steep  stairway,  and  pushed  his  way 
into  a  room  where  children  of  all  ages,  and 
trusses  of  straw,  and  a  iDig,  and  a  hen  with  her 
chickens,  and  a  black  crucifix,  and  a  load  of 
cabbage-leaves  and  maize-stalks,  and  a  single 
lemon-tree  in  a  pot,  were  all  together  nearly  in- 
distinguishable in  the  darkness.  He  tossed  the 
child  to  a  sturdy  brown  woman  with  fierce 
brows. 

"  Here,  Nita,  here  is  a  young  one  I  found  in 
the  fields.  Feed  it  to-night,  and  to-morrow  I 
will  tell  the  priest  and  the  others,  and  we  shall 
get  credit.  It  is  near  dead  of  cold  already.  No 
— I  cannot  stay — do  you  hear  how  the  waters 
are  out  ?  Bruno  is  down  below  wanting  me  to 
help  house  the  sheep." 

He  clattered  away  down  the  stairs,  and  joined 
his  brother  in  the  street. 

"  I  told  her  nothing  of  Pippa,"  he  said,  in  a 
whisper.  "  If  she  knew  it  were  Pippa's  not  a 
drop  of  milk  would  he  get  to-night.  As  it  is,  it 
is  a  pretty  little  beggar ;  she  wiU  let  him  share 


SIGNA.  39 


with  Toto.  She  knows  charity  pleases  Heaven. 
And — and — see  here,  Bruno,  why  need  we  speak 
of  Pippa  at  all." 

His  brother  stared  at  hiin  in  the  murky  gloom. 
"  Why  ? — why  we  must  fetch  her  in  and  bury 
her." 

"  The  waters  will  do  that  before  morning  if 
we  let  them  alone  ;  that  will  spare  us  a  deal  of 
trouble,  Bruno." 

"  Trouble— why  ?  " 

"  Oh  it  is  always  trouble — the  church  and  the 
law,  and  all  the  rest.  Then  you  know  the  Syndic 
is  such  a  man  to  ask  questions.  And  nobody 
saw  her  but  ourselves.  And  they  may  say  we 
tumbled  her  over.  She  has  come  back  poor,  and 
all  Signa  knows  that  you  struck  at  her  with  your 
knife  on  the  day  of  the  fair,  and  that  she  has 
been  a  disgrace  and  a  weariness  always.  We 
might  have  trouble,  Bruno." 

"  But  the  child  ?  " 

"  Oh,  the  child  !  I  have  told  Nita  we  picked  it 
up  lost  in  the  fields.  Why  should  we  tell  any- 
body to-night  about  Pippa?  The  poor  soul  is 
dead.     No  worse  can  come.     Men  do  not  hurt 


40  SIGN  A. 


dead  women.  And  there  is  so  much  to  do  to- 
night, Brmio.  We  should  see  for  our  sheep  on 
the  other  side  now,  and  then  stay  down  here. 
The  devil  knows  what  pranks  Arno  may  not 
play  to-night.  In  five  hours  I  warrant  you  he 
will  be  out  all  over  the  country." 

"But  to  leave  her  there — all  alone — it  is 
horrible  !  " 

"  How  shall  we  show  we  did  not  push  her  there 
to  her  death  ?  " 

"  But  we  did  noi." 

"  That  is  why  they  would  all  say  we  did. 
Everybody  knows  there  was  bad  blood  with  us 
and  Pippa :  and  most  of  all  with  jou.  Let  the 
night  go  over,  Bruno.  We  want  the  night  to 
work  in,  and  if  she  be  there  at  day  dawn,  then 
we  can  tell.     It  will  be  time  enough." 

"  Well — lie  as  you  like,"  said  the  other, 
sullenly.     ''  Let  us  get  the  sheep  in  anyhow." 

So  they  went  out  to  the  open  country  again,' 
through  the  storm  of  the  west  wind  that  was 
blowing  the  river  back  from  the  sea,  so  that  it 
could  not  get  out,  and  was  driven  up  again 
between  the   hills,    and  so  overflowed  the  lands 


SIGXA.  41 


through  which  it  travelled.  The  men  worked 
hard  and  in  earnest,  housing  then-  own  sheep  and 
driving  their  neighbours'  cattle  on  rising  knolls, 
or  within  church  doors,  or  anywdiere  wdiere  they 
were  safe  from  the  water ;  and  then  came  down 
again  into  the  street  towards  midnight,  where 
all  the  people  were  awake  and  astir  watching 
Arno,  and  holding  themselves  ready  to  flee. 

''You  have  got  the  ague,  Bruno,"  said  the 
man  at  the  wine-shop,  for  his  arm  shook  as  he 
drank  a  draught. 

"  So  would  5^ou  if  j^ou  had  been  up  to  your 
middle  in  water  all  the  night  like  me,"  said  the 
elder  brother,  roughly. 

But  it  was  not  the  water,  they  were  too  used 
to  that.  It  was  the  thought  of  the  woman  dead 
all  alone  under  the  old  sea  road. 

The  night  became  a  bitter  black  night.  Up  the 
valley  the  river  was  out,  flooding  the  pastures  far 
and  near.  Boats  went  and  came,  taking  help, 
and  bringing  homeless  families.  Watchfires 
were  burning  ever^^where.  Bodies  of  drowned 
cattle  drifted  in  by  scores.  There  w^ere  stories 
that  the  great  city  herself  was  in  flood.     In  such 


42  SIGNA. 


a  time  every  breath  is  a  tale  of  terror,  and  every 
rumour  grows  instantly  to  giant  j)roportions. 

The  upper  town  of  Signa  itself  was  safe.  But 
was  great  peril  for  the  low-lying  Lastra.  No 
one  went  to  their  beds.  The  priest  prayed. 
The  bells  tolled.  The  men  went  to  and  fro  in 
fear.  The  horrid  loudness  of  the  roaring  waters 
drowned  all  other  sounds. 

When  the  morning  broke,  sullen  and  grey, 
and  still  beaten  with  storm,  the  cold  dull  waste 
of  water  stretched  drearily  on  either  side  of  the 
great  bridge.  The  two  brethren  went  with 
the  crowd  that  looked  from  it  eastward  and 
westward. 

The  river  had  spread  over  the  iron  rails,  and 
the  grassy,  broken  ground,  and  the  bushes  of 
furze,  and  reached  half  way  up  to  the  rocks 
and  the  hill  road  above.  The  wind  had 
changed,  and  was  blowing  in  from  the  eastward 
mountains.  The  water  rolled  under  its  force 
with  furious  haste  to  the  sea  like  a  thing  long 
imprisoned,  and  frantic  with  the  joy  of  escape. 

"It  has  taken  Pippa,"  said  the  brothers,  low 
to  one  another. 


SIGNA. 


43 


And  they  felt  like  men  who  have  murdered  a 
woman. 

Not  that  it  mattered  of  course.  She  was 
dead.  And  if  not  to  the  sea,  then  to  the  earth,  all 
the  dead  must  go, — into  darkness,  and  forgotten 
of  all. 


CHAPTER   IV. 


The  brothers  looked  pale  under  their  brown 
skms  in  the  ashen  light  of  the  dawn. 

But  they  had  lost  sheep  like  other  folks,  and 
so  like  other  folks  were  pitied  as  the}"  went  back 
into  the  Lastra  to  get  a  mouthful  of  bread,  after 
the  sickly  vigil  of  the  night. 

Bruno  was  an  unwedded  man,  and  could 
bear  misfortune ;  but  Lippo  was  a  man  early 
married,  and  having  six  3^oung  children  to 
clamour  round  his  soup-pot,  and  fight  for  the 
crusts  of  bread.  He  was  pointed  out  amongst 
the  crowd  of  sufferers,  and  was  one  of  those  who 
were  pitied  the  most,  and  who  was  sure  to  get  a 
good  portion  of  the  alms-giving  and  public  relief. 


SIGNA.  45 


*'  Give  Bruno  a  cup  of  wine  and  a  crust,  Nita," 
said  he,  going  up  the  stairs  into  the  house  of  his 
wife.  He  lived  there  with  her  because  her  father, 
who  was  a  cobbler,  owned  the  place,  and  he 
himself  best  liked  the  life  of  the  Lastra.  The 
wife,  too,  having  been  a  cobbler's  daughter  and 
grand-daughter,  had  been  alwaj^s  used  to  see 
life  from  the  half-door  of  the  workshop  ;  she 
would  not  become  a  mere  contadina,  hoeing  and 
weeding  and  i:)laiting  and  carrying  dung  in  a 
broad-leaved  hat  and  a  russet  gown — not  she, 
were  it  ever  so ;  and  Anita  was  one  of  those 
strong  and  fortunate  women  who  alwa3's  get 
their  own  way  by  dint  of  their  power  to  make 
ever3^one  wretched  who  crosses  them. 

"  Leave  me  to  speak,"  said  Lippo,  with  a 
glance  of  meaning  to  his  brother. 

It  was  five  in  the  morning,  very  cold,  and  still 
dusky.  Anxiety  was  allayed,  since  the  wind  blew 
from  the  east,  and  the  waters  were  sinking,  though 
slowly. 

Nita,  who  had  been  up  all  night  on  the  watch, 
like  the  rest  of  the  women,  was  boiling  coffee  in 
a  tin-pot,  and  fanning  the  charcoal.     The  chil- 


46  SIGJSfA. 


dren  lay  about  as  tliey  chose  on  the  floor.  None 
of  them  had  been  put  to  bed,  since  at  any  mo- 
ment they  might  have  had  to  run  for  their 
lives. 

Bruno  looked  round  for  Pippa's  child.  He 
did  not  see  it. 

"  An  awful  night,"  said  Lippo,  kicking  the  pig 
out  of  a  doze.  "  They  do  say  the  Vecchio  bridge 
is  down  in  Florence,  and  that  the  jewellers  could 
not  get  out  in  time.  I  wish  the  gold  and  silver 
and  stones  would  drift  down  here.  All  the  Greve 
country  is  swamped.  St.  Giusto  sticks  up  on 
his  tower  like  a  masthead.  The  cattle  are 
drowned  by  herds.  Whole  stacks  of  wheat  are 
against  the  piles,  making  hungry  souls'  mouths 
water  ;  rotted  and  ruined  ;  fine  last  year's  grain ; 
the  good  God  is  bitter-hard  sometimes.  Where 
is  the  baby  I  brought  you  last  night,  my 
woman  ?  " 

Nita  pointed  with  her  charcoal  fan ;  her  coffee 
was  on  the  point  of  boiling. 

The  brothers  looked  where  she  pointed,  to  a 
nest  of  hay  close  to  the  hen  and  her  chickens. 
The  child  lay  there  sound  asleep,  with  his  little 


SIGNA.  47 


naked  limbs  curled  up  ;  and  close  against  him 
was  Toto,  a  yearling  child  also. 

The  elder  brother  turned  away  suddenly,  and 
his  body  shook  a  little. 

"  You  have  never  dried  your  clothes,  Bruno," 
said  his  sister-in-law.  "  What  a  gaby  a  man  is 
without  a  wife.  Drink  that,  it  is  hot  as  hot. 
And  what  did  you  brmg  me  that  baby  for — you 
and  Lippo  ?  You  know  whose  brat  it  is,  I  sup- 
pose, and  look  out  for  the  reward  ?  I  thought 
so,  or  I  would  not  have  given  it  house-room. 
Toto  is  more  work  than  enough,  so  masterful  as 
he  is — and  so  ravenous." 

**  Nay,"  said  Lippo,  as  with  a  sheepish  apolog}' 
for  his  weakness.  "I  know  nothing  of  whose 
brat  it  is — I  was  just  sorry  for  it ;  left  in  the 
soaking  fields  there  ;  and  I  picked  it  up  as  I 
should  pick  up  a  lame  lamb.  What  do  you  think 
of  it,  my  dearest  ?  does  it  look  a  poor  child  or 
a  rich  one,  eh  ?     Women  are  quick  to  judge." 

The  black  brows  of  Nita  lowered  in  wrath. 

*'  Mercy  of  heaven  !  Who  would  have  to  do 
with  such  dolts  as  men  ?  Just  because  the  child 
was  there  you  pick  it  up,  never  thinking  of  all 


48  SIGNA. 


the  hungry  mouths  half-fed  at  home  !  Shame  on 
you.  You  are  an  unnatural  brute.  You  would 
starve  your  own  to  nourish  a  stranger !  " 

"  Nay,  sweetest  Nita !  "  murmured  Lippo, 
coaxingly.  "  On  such  a  night — and  a  child  taken 
down  by  flood,  too — not  a  living  soul  but  would 
have  done  as  I  did.  And  who  knows  but  he  may 
be  some  rich  father's  child,  and  make  our  for- 
tunes ?  Any  way,  the  township  will  give  us 
credit,  and  he  can  go  to  the  Innocenti  to-morrow, 
if  we  find  no  gain  in  him.  Look  what  his  things 
betoken." 

"  Oh,  his  things  are  rough-spun  enough,  and 
vile  as  can  be,"  said  his  wife,  in  a  fuming  fury. 
"  And  would  a  rich  man's  child  be  out  on  flood? 
It  is  only  the  poor  brats  that  the  weather  finds 
loose  for  it  to  i)lay  antics  with ;  the  child  is 
a  beggar's  son,  and  this  thing  linked  round  his 
neck  by  a  little  string,  is  a  thing  you  get  at  the 
fairs  for  a  copper-bit." 

The  two  men  looked  together  at  the  locket 
that  she  held  to  them ;  it  was  of  base-metal — a 
little  poor  round  trumpery  plaything.  On  it 
there  was  the  one  word  in  raised  letters  of  Signa, 


SIGN  A.  49 


and  inside  a  curl  of  soft  light  hair.  That  was 
all.  They  could  none  of  them  read,  so  the  letters 
on  the  metal  told  them  nothing.  They  stooped 
together  over  the  sleeping  child. 

He  was  pretty  and  well  made  ;  he  lay  quite 
naked  in  the  haj^,  and  beside  brown  Toto  looked 
like  one  of  the  little  white  marble  children  of  old 
Mino.  His  lashes  and  his  brows  were  black, 
but  over  his  forehead  hung  little  rings  of  soft,  fair, 
crumpled  hair. 

Bruno  turned  away. 

"  She  used  to  look  just  like  that  when  she  was 
a  little  child,"  he  muttered  to  himself. 

Lippo  glanced  round  to  see  if  his  wife 
heard.  But  she  was  busy  with  the  hen, 
who  had  got  into  a  barrel  of  rice,  and  was 
eating  treble  her  own  price  in  the  market  at  one 
meal. 

"  The  brat  must  go,"  said  she,  turning  and 
flogging  the  hen  away.  "  As  for  a  chance  that  it 
is  a  rich  man's  child,  that  is  all  rubbish.  You 
make  your  bread  with  next  year's  corn.  Chances 
like  that  are  old  wives'  tales.  What  we  have  to 
do  is  to  feed  six  hungry  stomachs.     You  were  a 

VOL.  I.  E 


50  SIGN  A. 


fool  to  bring  it  here  at  all.  But  to  dream  one 
should  keep  it !     Holy  Mary  !  " 

"Holy  Mary  would  say,  keep  it,"  said  Bruno, 
munching  his  crust. 

"Maybe  it  is  your  own,  Bruno.  Those  that 
hide  can  find,"  said  his  sister-in-law,  sharply. 
"  The  child  shall  pack  to-day.  I  shall  go  and 
tell  them  at  the  guard-house.  Toto  is  more  than 
enough,  and  as  for  that  locket,  you  can  get  such 
trash  as  that  at  any  fair  for  a  couj)le  of  figs. 
That  goes  for  nothing. 

"  Well,  well,  keep  the  poor  baby  till  noon, 
and  I  will  see  what  the  Curato  says.  It  is  always 
well  to  see  what  he  says,"  her  husband  answered 
her  hurriedly,  and  afraid  of  the  gathering  storm 
on  Bruno's  face. 

Bruno  was  passionate,  tempestuous,  and  weak, 
and  the  quieter  and  subtler  brother  ruled  him 
with  ease  whilst  seeming  to  obey.  But  for  turn- 
ing the  baby  of  dead  Pippa's  to  public  main- 
tenance— Lippo  had  a  foreboding  in  him  that  in 
this  matter  his  brother  would  be  too  strong  for 
him. 

He  hurried  away  out  of  pretext  of  the  labour 


SIGNA.  51 


awaiting  tliem  in  the  inundated  countrj^,  not 
without  misgiving  that  the  darkest  suspicions 
as  to  the  fatherhood  of  the  foundling  were 
awakening  in  the  jealous  soul  of  his  wife. 

They  went  straight  to  the  edge  of  the  river, 
and  got  out  their  old  black  boat,  with  its  carved 
prow  and  tricoloured  tiller,  and  pulled  down  the 
current  of  the  now  quiet  water  to  see  with  the  rest 
what  they  could  help  to  save  from  the  flotsam 
and  jetsum  of  the  flood.  Whole  districts  lay 
under  water,  and  the  river  was  full  of  dead  cats 
and  dogs,  drowned  sheep,  floating  pipkins  and 
wine-casks,  bales  of  hay,  carcases  of  cows,  and 
broken  bits  of  furniture  from  many  a  ruined 
farmstead  and  peasant's  hut  laid  low. 

*'  Listen,"  said  the  elder  brother  suddenly, 
when  the  boat  was  faMy  out  from  the  bank^ 
and  with  his  hooked  pole  he  drew  in  a  spinning- 
wheel  with  its  hank  of  flax  drenched  like  a 
drowned  girl's  hair.  "  Listen  to  me,  Lippo. 
Pippa's  son  must  not  go  to  charity.  Do  you 
hear?" 

"  I  hear.     But  we  are  poor  men,  and  Pippa 

was " 

E  2 


52  SIGN  A. 


''  That  is  neither  here  nor  there,"  said  Bruno, 
with  his  dark  brows  meeting.  "  She  never  asked 
alms  of  us,  nor  house-room,  nor  did  anything 
except  go  to  her  death  just  as  sheep  tumble 
over  a  rock.  The  baby  must  not  go  to  the 
parish.  We  did  faulty  enough — letting  her  go 
down  flood  with  never  an  office  of  church  said 
over  her.  And  who  knows — who  knows — she 
might  not  be  quite  dead,  after  all." 

"  Nita  will  not  keep  him — that  is  sure,"  said 
the  younger  quickly.  "Look,  that  is  Barcelli's 
old  red  cow.  You  may  know  her  by  the  spot  on 
her  side." 

*'  Would  she  keep  him  if  she  were  paid  ?  " 

Lippo's  eyes  lighted  wdth  joy,  but  he  bent  a 
grave  face  over  his  pole  as  he  raked  in  a  floating 
oil-flask  b}^  its  wicker  coat. 

''  I  doubt  if  she  would.  She  has  a  deal  of 
trouble  with  To  to.  And  who  is  there  to  pay, 
pray  ?  We  know  no  more  than  the  cow  there 
who  the  man  was — you  know  that." 

"I  will  pay."     , 

"You!" 

"  Yes ;  I  will  pay  the  child's  keep." 


SIGNA.  53 


"  Holy  angels !  And  you  who  were  for  ever 
at  words  and  blows  with  Pippa,  and  stabbed  at 
her  even  for  being  too  gay !  " 

"  I  will  pay,"  said  Bruno. 

Lippo  rowed  on  in  silence  some  moments. 

"  How  much  ?  "  he  asked  at  last. 

"  I  will  give  you  half  all  I  get." 

Lippo's  white  teeth  showed  themselves  in  a 
sudden  smile.  His  brother  gained  a  good  deal 
in  corn  and  oil  and  beans  and  hay  and  wine, 
being  on  good  land,  and  being  a  man  who  worked 
and  got  the  uttermost  out  of  the  soil  that  he 
shared  with  his  master,  and  Lippo  was  often 
pinched  by  his  father-in-law  Baldo  the  cobbler, 
and  half  famished  by  his  wife,  and  was  a  true, 
thrifty  son  of  the  soil,  and  knew  the  worth  of 
a  hundredth  i)art  of  a  copper  coin  as  well  as  any 
man  between  sea  and  mountain. 

"  Half  all  you  get,  and  we  to  keep  the  child  ?  " 
he  said  absently,  and  as  with  reluctance.  ''  But 
what  can  we  say  to  Nita  ?  " 

"  You  are  never  at  a  loss  for  good  lying, 
Lippo." 

Lippo  smiled ;  his  vanity  was  flattered. 


54  SIGNA. 


"  I  never  lie  to  Nita.  She  always  finds  one 
out.  Only  in  the  matter  of  Pippa's  son  I  hid  the 
truth  to  please  you.  She  never  would  nurse  the 
child  if  she  guessed.  But  as  for  making  her 
keep  him,  say  what  one  will,  it  will  be  impossible 
— impossible,  my  dear." 

"  It  must  be,"  said  Bruno,  withdrawing  his 
hand  from  the  tiller  and  bringing  it  down  with 
violence  on  the  boat's  side,  while  his  eyes 
flashed  with  blue  fire  as  the  lightning  flashes 
most  summer  nights  over  the  blue  hills  of  his 
own  Signa.  "  It  must  be.  I  will  i)ay.  I  will 
give  you  half  I  get.  Good  harvests — you  know 
what  that  is.  But  Pippa's  child  shall  not  go 
to  the  parish  while  I  have  an  arm  to  drive 
a  plough  through  the  ground  or  to  guide  over 
the  field.  Settle  it  with  your  wife  your  own  way. 
But  Pippa's  child  shall  grow  up  amongst  us." 

*'  Dear  Bruno,  to  please  you  I  will  tr}^,"  said 
gentle  Lippo  with  a  sigh.  "  But  we  have  brats 
too  many  in  the  house,  and  you  know  what  Nita's 
'  Nay '  can  be." 

**  Nay  or  yea,  the  child  stays,"  said  Bruiio. 

"  The  half  of  everything,"  murmured  Lippo, 


SIGN  A.  55 


as  lie  bent  to  Lis  oars  and  passed  by  a  dog 
howling  on  the  top  of  its  floating  kennel  to 
reach  his  pole  to  a  butcher's  basket  of  meat 
that  was  tossing  amongst  the  rubbish. 

But  Bruno,  having  the  tiller,  pushed  first  to 
reach  the  dog. 

"  It  is  only  a  cur,"  said  Li^^po. 

Bruno  pulled  the  dog  into  the  boat. 

In  the  Lastra,  and  in  the  town,  and  in  all  the 
country  round  or  near  Signa,  the  brothers  were 
known  as  well  as  the  mass-bells  of  the  churches. 
The  Signa  people  thought  that  Bruno  the  con- 
tadino  was  a  bad  man  enough,  ready  with  his 
knife  and  often  in  a  brawl,  and  too  often  seen 
at  fairs  and  with  other  men's  wives  on  feast- 
days.  Lippo  they  liked  and  respected,  and  every- 
body spoke  him  fair;  and  he  would  keep  the 
peace  most  beautifully  when  men  got  angry  in  the 
street  before  his  house-door. 

They  were  both  handsome  men,  and  could 
neither  of  them  read,  and  believed  in  their  priest 
and  their  paternoster,  and  had  never  been  beyond 
the  mountains  around  Signa,  except  now  and 
then — Bruno  with   his   bullocks,   and  Lippo  in 


56  SIGNA. 


a  donkey- cart  to  buy  leather — down  the  Valdarno 
into  the  Lily  City. 

Bruno  lived  on  the  wild  hillside,  amongst  the 
thyme  and  the  myrtle  and  the  gorze  and  the 
grass-cropping  sheep  and  the  ever-singing  night- 
ingales. Lippo  dwelt  down  in  the  street,  doing 
as  little  as  he  could,  and  hj  preference  nothing, 
in  the  smell  of  his  wife's  frying  and  in  the  sound 
of  her  father's  little  hammer;  rowing  out  his 
boat  when  there  was  any  chance  for  it  to  pay, 
and  seeing  after  the  few  sheep  that  the  shoe- 
maker kept  above  the  bridge.  They  had  been 
born  within  a  year  of  one  another  —  sons  of 
peasants  and  workers  in  the  fields.  Bruno  had 
stayed  on  the  old  land  where  his  fathers  had  had 
rights  of  the  soil  uncounted  generations.  Lippo 
had  loitered  down  love-making  into  the  Lastra, 
and  had  married  very  early  the  daughter  of  well- 
to-do  old  Baldo. 

There  had  been  several  sons  after  them.  Two 
had  been  killed  as  soldiers,  and  others  had  died 
in  infancy  by  various  strokes  of  evil  chance  ;  and 
the  youngest  of  them  all  had  been  Pippa — 
Pippa,  whose  body  was  gone  out  on  the  flood 


SIGN  A.  57 


to  the  sea  with  never  a  prayer  said  over  her. 
Beautiful,  fierce,  wayward,  wilful,  fire-mouthed 
Pippa,  who  had  run  over  the  hills  like  a  lizard, 
and  who  had  had  saucy  words  on  her  tongue  as  a 
rose  has  its  thorns,  and  who  had  had  all  Signa 
gazing  after  her  for  her  beaut}^  when  she  had 
walked  singing  like  a  cherub  in  the  wake  of  the 
banners  of  the  church. 

Not  that  she  had  ever  cared  much  for  the 
church, — poor  Pippa. 

She  had  always  been  quarrelsome  and  self- 
willed  and  headstrong ;  and  had  flouted  her 
lovers,  and  been  petulant  to  her  own  hindrance, 
and  as  wild  as  a  hawk,  and  provoking — yes,  pro- 
voking, past  the  endurance  of  any  man  who  was 
a  brother  and  nothing  more.  She  would  never 
sit  quiet  and  spin  ;  she  would  never  keep  her 
eyes  on  her  tress  of  straw  as  other  girls  did  ;  if 
she  milked  the  cow  she  would  upset  the  pail  just 
out  of  wantonness,  and  would  laugh  and  dance  to 
see  their  rage  when  she  let  the  pigs  run  in 
amongst  her  brother's  i)lot  of  green  peas.  Yes, 
certainly,  she  was  provoking;  a  bad  girl,  even 
though  loving  at  heart ;  no  one  was  to  blame  that 


58  SIGNA. 


she  had  gone  away  without  a  word  and  come 
back  so,  with  a  child  at  her  breast,  to  find  her 
death  the  night  of  the  flood. 

A  self-willed  foolish  girl  and  with  wrong-doing 
ingrained  in  her — as  for  patience,  who  could  be 
very  patient  with  a  woman  that  let  the  pigs  in 
amongst  your  peas  just  when  green  peas  fetched 
their  weight  in  silver  ?  And  then  she  had  such 
a  tongue  too,  the  little  shrew — true,  she  did  not 
bear  malice,  and  would  not  growl,  growl,  growl 
for  hours  together  as  Nita  would,  and  Nita's 
mother,  thinking  it  the  only  way  to  manage 
men ;  true,  she  was  a  generous  soul,  and  would 
let  a  beggar  have  her  dinner,  though  meals  were 
meagre  on  the  hills ;  and  when  one  had  beaten 
her  till  she  was  blue  she  would  not  tell,  but  say 
she  had  fallen  from  the  ladder  trimming  the 
vines,  or  that  the  bees  had  stung  her.  Still  a 
wilful,  quarrelsome,  pettish  thing ;  no  man  could 
be  blamed  for  her  ill-hap  nor  for  her  end.  So 
Lippo  said  to  himself  when  his  brother  had  gone 
up  to  the  hills,  and  he  himself  left  his  boat  to  go 
down  the  narrow  street  homeward,  pondering  on 
Pippa's  child  and  on  what  he  should  say  to  Nita. 


SIGNA.  59 


As  he  went  up  the  stairs  he  settled  the  lie  to 
his  mind's  content,  and  entered  the  room  looking 
with  his  fahest  faith  out  of  his  clear  brown 
eyes. 

"  I  am  going  to  be  frank  with  j^ou,  Nita,"  he 
said,  and  then  he  sat  down  and  lied  so  prettil}', 
that  if  there  be  a  Father  of  Lies  he  must  quite 
have  rejoiced  to  hear  him. 

Nita  Hstened  as  well  as  a  woman  can  listen — 
that  is,  interruptmg  twenty  times  and  getting  up 
to  do  some  iiTelevant  thing  twice  twenty. 

"  Bruno's  son !  "  she  cried  at  last. 

"  Hush  !  The  children  will  hear,"  said  Lippo. 
"  It  is  as  I  tell  you.  Only  Bruno  must  not 
know  that  you  know,  because  he  is  so  afraid  that 
red  haired  Koma  whom  he  is  courting  should  hear 
of  it.  But  you  see  why  I  closed  with  him,  Nita. 
It  will  be  a  good  thing  for  us.  We  can  eat  Like 
fatting  pigs  off  Brmio's  land.  Nothing  to 
prevent  us.  And  it  is  hill  land,  you  know, 
and  his  share  comes  to  a  good  bit,  taking  fair 
weather  and  foul.  And  then,  besides  that,  we 
shall  have  credit  in  the  Lastra,  for  Bruno  never 
will  say  a  word,  and  the  curato  and  all  the  place 


60  SIGNA. 


may  as  well  think  the  child  a  foundling  as  not. 
A  good  deed  smells  sweet  in  the  neighbours* 
nostrils,  and  a  good  name  is  like  a  blest  palm. 
We  must  tell  3^our  father,  or  he  will  grumble  at 
their  being  a  seventh  mouth.  But  nobody  else 
need  know.  The  brat  will  grow  up  with  the 
others  and  we  shall  seem  kind,  that  is  all." 

"  To  think  of  its  being  Bruno's  !  "  cried  Nita, 
with  a  clap  of  her  big  brown  hands.  "  Did  I 
not  say  so,  now?  Did  I  not  jeer  him  as  he 
looked  at  it  asleep  ?  Oh-ho  !  Who  can  deceive 
me  ?     Never  you  try,  Lippo,  more  !  " 

"  You  can  see  through  a  millstone  ;  "  replied 
Lippo,  with  an  embrace  of  her.  "  Only  an  ass 
can  ever  seek  to  blind  you,  and  that  is  why  I 
told  you  the  truth,  though  Bruno  would  have 
screened  it.  He  is  so  afraid  of  the  creature  he 
goes  to  now  ever  knowing — you  understand." 

"  The  child  will  be  a  bother,"  said  Anita, 
remembering  the  kicks  and  cuffs  with  whose  best 
administration  she  could  scarce  manage  to  keep 
the  peace  amongst  her  brood  or  their  hands  ever 
out  of  the  soup -pot. 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Lippo,  shrugging  his  shoulders, 


SIQNA.  61 


*'wliere  there  are  six  there  may  as  well  he  seven. 
He  will  tumhle  up  with  the  others.  We  are  to 
have  half  of  all  Bruno  gets,  and  I  can  guess  to  a 
stalk,  you  know,  what  an  acre  of  wheat  is  worth 
or  what  an  olive  or  a  fig  tree  bears.  No  fattore 
would  outwit  me.  I  was  not  bred  out  on  the 
fields  for  nothing.  Half  of  everything  jon  know, 
Nita.  That  will  mean  a  good  deal  in  good 
seasons.  I  am  very  hungry,  carina.  Could  3'ou 
not  fry  something  in  oil,  nice  and  tempting  for 
one  ?     An  artichoke,  now,  or  a  blackbird  ?  " 

Nita  grumbled  at  the  extravagance,  but  being 
in  a  good  humour  went  downstairs  and  across 
the  wa}^  and  brought  over  some  artichokes  and 
fried  them  and  ate  them  with  her  husband,  the 
children  being  sent  to  make  dust  pies  and  castles 
in  the  sun  on  the  stones  below,  old  Baldo  keeping 
an  eye  on  them  over  his  half-door. 

Lippo  and  his  wife  ate  their  artichokes,  and 
drank  a  little  wine  with  them. 

Pippa's  son  cried  unnoticed  in  his  nest  of  hay, 
and  sobbed  out  his  one  little  word  for  mother, 
which  was  like  the  moan  of  a  little  unfledged 
bird  left  in  the  snow. 


6^ 


SIGNA. 


"  We  will  bring  him  up  to  help  himself,"  said 
Lippo,  with  his  mouth  filled  with  the  fried  eggs 
and  oil. 

The  child  sobbed  on,  and  felt  for  his  mother's 
breast,  and  only  had  his  small  soft  rosy  hands 
torn  with  the  thorns  and  pricked  with  the  burrs 
and  briars  of  the  sun-dried  hay. 


CHAPTEK  V. 

Meanwhile  Brmio  went  on  up  the  hills  ;  up 
the  same  old  roacl  which  had  felt  Pippa's  foot- 
steps on  it  the  night  before;  with  the  river 
underneath  it,  and  on  the  other  side  the  moun- 
tains rising,  with  the  olives  and  vines  about  their 
sides,  and  on  their  summits  old  watchtowers  and 
fortresses,  and  dusky  woods  of  ilex,  and  cloud}" 
masses  of  stone-pine,  that  sent  then-  strong  odour 
down  the  valley  a  score  of  miles. 

Bruno  went  on  his  way,  looking  neither  right 
nor  left.  He  went  over  the  ground  so  often,  and 
he  had  seen  it  all  from  the  year  he  was  born  ; 
always  this  and  never  anything  else ;  and  long 
familiarity  dulls  the  sense  of  beauty,  even 
where    such    sense    has    been    awakened,    and 


64  SIGNA. 

Bruno's  never  had  been — except  for  a  woman's 
looks. 

He  strode  on,  not  looking  up  nor  looking 
back;  a  straight -limbed,  swarthy,  fine-built 
peasant,  of  thirty  years  or  more,  with  the  oval 
face  of  his  country,  and  broad,  black,  luminous 
eyes,  soft  and  contemplative,  like  the  eyes  of  the 
ox,  when  the  rage  was  not  alight  in  them. 

He  did  not  look  round,  because  peasants  do 
not  look  up  from  the  soil ;  and  he  did  not  look 
back,  because  he  had  no  care  to  see  the  spot 
where  he  had  kneeled  down  in  the  wet  grass  by 
the  broken  bushes,  with  the  noise  of  the  river  in 
his  ears. 

He  went  up  the  sea-road  some  way,  and  then 
quitted  it  and  ascended  to  the  left.  The  estate 
to  which  he  belonged  was  on  the  side  of  a  spur 
of  the  mountains,  that  turns  to  Signa,  and 
faces  straight  down  the  valley,  and  whose  wine 
is  named  as  famous  in  the  Bacco  in  Toscana  of 
Kedi. 

There  are  beautiful  hills  in  this  country, 
steep  and  bold,  and  formed  chiefly  of  lime- 
stone and  sandstone,  covered  all  over  with  gum- 


SIGNA.  65 


cistus  and  thyme,  and  wild-roses  and  myrtle, 
with  low  growing  laurels  and  tall  cypresses,  and 
boulders  of  stone,  and  old  thorn  trees,  and  flocks 
of  nightingales  always,  and  the  sad-voiced  little 
owl  that  was  beloved  of  Shelle}^ 

Bruno's  farmstead  was  on  one  of  these  hills  ; 
half  the  hill  was  cultured,  and  the  other  half  w^as 
wild ;  and  on  its  height  was  an  old,  gre}^,  mighty 
place,  once  the  palace  of  a  cardinal,  and  where 
there  now  dwelt  the  steward  of  the  soil  on 
which  Bruno  had  been  born. 

His  cottage  was  a  large,  low,  white  building 
with  a  red  roof,  and  a  great  arched  door,  and 
a  sun-dial  on  the  wall,  and  a  group  of  cypresses 
beside,  and  a  big  walnut  tree  before  it.  There 
was  an  old  well  with  some  broken  sculpture  ; 
some  fowls  scratching  under  the  fig  boughs;  a 
pig  hunting  for  roots  in  the  black  bare  earth; 
behind  it  stretched  the  wild  hill- side,  and  in 
front  a  great  slope  of  fields  and  vinej^ards ;  and 
far  below  them  in  the  distance  the  valley  and  the 
river  and  the  bridge,  with  the  high  crest  of  the 
upper  Signa,  and  the  low  l3ing  wall-towers  or 
the  Lastra  on  either  side  of  the  angry  waters. 

A'OL.    I.  F 


66  SIGJ^A. 


Bruno  did  not  look  back  at  it  all.  He  saw 
the  sun  rise  over  it,  and  the  beautiful  pale  light 
steal  up,  and  up,  and  up,  and  up,  whenever  he 
rose  to  his  work  in  the  day-dawn.  But  it  was 
nothing  at  all  to  him.  When  now  and  then  a 
traveller  or  a  painter  strayed  thither,  and  said  it 
was  beautiful,  Bruno  smiled,  glad  because  it  was 
his  own  country — that  was  all. 

He  went  into  his  cold,  quiet,  desolate  house, 
and  sat  down  for  a  minute's  rest ;  he  was  tired. 
There  was  no  one  to  greet  him.  He  did  every- 
thing for  himself.  He  had  no  neighbours.  The 
nearest  contadino  lived  a  mile  down  beyond 
the  fields  which  in  summer  were  a  sea  of  maize 
and  a  starrj^  world  of  fire-flies ;  and  the  old 
palace  was  some  distance  higher  on  the  crest, 
where  the  gorze  grew  thickest,  and  the  moun- 
tain moss  clustered  about  the  roots  of  the  stone- 
pines. 

Here — in  the  long,  low,  rambling  dwelling,  with 
the  sun-dial  on  its  wall,  and  the  great  archways 
underneath  it,  and  the  stacks  of  straw  before  it 
— there  had  been  nine  of  them  once.  Now 
Bruno  lived  there  alone. 


SIGNA. 


He  sat  down  a  minute  on  the  settle,  and 
tliouglit.  Thinking  was  new  work  to  him.  He 
never  thought  at  all,  except  of  the  worm  in  the 
ripening  wheat,  or  the  ticks  in  the  flock's  fleeces. 
The  priest  did  his  thinldng  for  him.  What  use 
was  it  to  pay  a  priest  for  having  opinions  if  one 
had  to  think  for  one's  self  as  well  ? 

But  he  sat  and  thought  now. 

Poor  Pippa  !  what  a  little,  rudd}^,  pretty  thing 
she  was  l3^ing  in  her  white  swaddling  bands, 
when  he  w^as  a  big  rough  bo}'  twelve  years  old, 
with  bare  feet  and  chest,  who  used  to  come  in 
from  the  fields  hungry  and  footsore,  and  feel 
angry  to  see  the  last-come  child  in  his  mother's 
arms,  getting  all  her  care  and  caresses. 

He  bore  Pippa  a  grudge  from  her  birth. 

They  were  all  boys,  rough  and  tumble  together, 
share  and  share  alike ;  and  then  one  summer 
mornmg  the  girl  came,  and  their  mother  never 
seemed  the  same  to  them  again — never  an}^  more. 
The  little  girl,  Avith  a  face  like  a  bud  of  the  red 
rose  laurel,  seemed  to  be  all  she  thought  about — or 
so  they  fancied ;  and  anything  good  that  could 
be  got,  honey,  or  a  drop  of  new  milk,  or  a  little 

F  2 


68  SIGNA. 


white  loaf  from  the  town,  or  an  apricot  from  the 
fattoria,  was  always  set  aside  for  Pippa ;  pretty, 
saucy,  nois}^,  idle  Pippa,  who  was  more  often 
in  mischief  than  they  were,  but  never  got, 
as  they  did,  a  thrashing  and  a  wish  that  the 
devil  might  come  and  fetch  away  all  naughty 
children. 

There  had  been  times  when  he  had  hated 
Pippa,  hated  her  from  the  first  day  he  saw  her 
lying  on  her  mother's  bosom,  with  her  little  red 
mouth,  clinging  as  a  bee  does  at  a  flower^  to  the 
night  when  he  had  scolded  her  for  dancing  with 
any  fool  that  asked  her,  and  then  she  had  mocked 
him  about  a  dead  love,  and  he  had  struck  at  her 
with  his  knife,  and  the  people  had  dragged  him 
off  her,  all  blind  with  rage  and  shame  at  his  own 
misdoing  ;  and  the  blood  had  spouted  out  up 
from  her  neck,  and  stained  the  lace  she  wore  as 
red  as  a  goldfinch's  feathers. 

He  had  hated  her  always. 

It  seemed  to  him  now  that  he  had  been  like 
a  brute  to  her — poor,  pretty,  brown- eyed,  happy, 
self-willed  thing,  who  had  been  spoilt  from  her 
babyhood  upward. 


BIGNA.  69 


Lippo  remembered  how  provoking  she  had 
been,  and  justified  himself,  as  he  went  home 
through  the  Lastra. 

But  Bruno  forgot  it,  and  only  reproached  him- 
self. He  had  always  been  rough  and  fierce  and 
moody  with  her — oh  3'es,  no  doubt.  If  he  had  been 
l^atient  with  her — he  twelve  years  older,  too — 
she  might  never  have  run  away  from  her  home 
on  the  hill,  and  borne  that  nameless  child,  and 
gone  to  her  death  on  the  old  sea -road. 

No  doubt  he  had  done  wrong  b}^  her ;  had 
been  too  severe  and  t3Tannous,  and  had  helped 
to  make  the  cottage  distasteful  to  her  after 
their  mother  had  died  and  he  had  become 
master,  and  had  tried  to  shut  her  in,  as  a  thrush 
is  shut  in  a  wicker  cage. 

He  forgot  all  her  faults — poor  dead  Pippa — 
and  he  remembered  all  his  own.  Liberal  natures 
will  err  thus  to  themselves  ;  and  Bruno,  with 
all  his  evil  waj^s,  was  liberal  as  the  sun  and 
winds. 

Poor  Pippa  ! 

He  saw  her  as  he  had  seen  her  standing  out 
in  the  light  on  the  hill,  with  her  little  brown  hands 


70  SIGNA. 


plaiting  the  straw  all  unevenly,  and  her  bow-like 
mouth  gay  with  laughter  at  some  piece  of  mischief 
sweet  to  her  as  a  fig  in  summer.  She  had  used 
to  look  so  pretty,  with  her  arch  eyes  shining 
under  her  great  straw^  penthouse  of  a  hat,  and 
her  supple,  slim  shape,  in  brown  and  red,  like  a 
firefly,  standing  up  as  a  poppy  does  against  the 
corn  on  the  amber  light  of  the  evening  sky,  here 
where  the  hill  was  just  the  same,  and  only  she  was 
a  thing  that  was  gone  for  ever  and  ever  and 
ever. 

Bruno  shut  his  eyes  not  to  see  the  hill.  But 
he  could  not  shut  out  his  thoughts.  He  had 
been  a  brute  to  her.  It  stirred  and  grew  in  him ; 
this  mute  remorse,  which  Lippo  would  have 
laughed  at,  and  which  had  been  awake  ever 
since  he  had  gone  about  his  business  as  the 
river  rose,  and  left  the  dead  woman  alone  to 
drift  down  with  the  flood. 

She  was  dead,  of  course,  and  it  could  hurt  her 
no  more  to  be  swept  out  to  the  salt  sea-pools 
westward  than  to  be  lowered  into  the  earth  in 
a  coffin.  Still  Bruno,  if  he  had  gone  straight  to 
the  priest  and  told  him,  and  had  let  the  Church 


SIGNA. 


sorrow  over  and  bury  lier,  would  not  have  been 
tormented  by  the  thought  of  her  as  he  was 
now.  Now,  in  a  curious  kind  of  half  stupid 
way,  he  felt  as  if  he  had  found  her  and  had 
killed  her. 

There  had  been  war  between  him  and  Pippa 
always ;  and  though  it  had  shocked  him  a  little 
to  find  her  lying  there  lifeless  in  the  dark,  yet  he 
had  not  cared  much  at  first.  But  since  he  had  for- 
saken her  to  the  will  of  the  waters,  in  the  vague 
fear  of  that  nameless  trouble  which  his  brother 
had  threatened  liim  with  as  possible,  Bruno — a 
brave  man  all  his  days — felt  a  coward ;  and  with 
the  tingling  shame  of  that  new  craven  sense 
came  a  self-reproach  in  which  any  rough  word 
and  fierce  act  of  his  life  against  the  lost  crea- 
ture rose  in  judgment  against  him. 

Poor  Pippa ! 

After  all,  what  had  her  faults  been  ?  Only 
mirth  and  over-eagerness  for  pleasure,  and  a 
quick  tongue,  and  a  love  of  the  sunshine  idly 
spent  amongst  fruits  and  flowers  whilst  others 
were  workmg.     These  were  all. 

She  had  been  truthful  and  generous  of  temper, 


72  8IGNA. 


and  never  unwilling  to  forgive.  Naj-,  though  he 
had  struck  at  her  with  his  open  blade  that  fair- 
night,  she  had  called  out  to  the  people  not  to  hurt 
him  for  it ;  and  when  she  had  left  the  hillside 
that  very  summer — no  one  knew  for  whither  nor 
with  whom — did  she  not  tell  an  old  woman,  who 
alone  saw  her  going  through  the  millet  at  break 
of  day  with  a  bundle,  "  Say  to  my  brothers  I  am 
not  angr}"  any  more  ;  the}^  have  been  unkind 
to  me,  but  I  have  been  troublesome,  and  said 
hot  words  very  often;  and  I  will  pray  for  them, 
if  that  will  do  any  good  :  only  tell  them  not 
to  try  to  bring  me  back,  because  we  never  are 
at  peace  together  "  ? 

Poor  Pippa ! 

He  shut  his  eyes  against  the  sunlight;  but, 
shut  them  as  he  would  with  both  hands,  he 
saw  her  as  he  had  seen  her  last,  coming 
through  the  beanflowers,  with  the  long  evening 
shadows  and  the  little  golden  fireflies  seeming 
to  run  before  her;  when  he  had  turned  across  the 
fields  and  avoided  her  because  of  the  thrust  with 
the  knife,  which  she  had  never  spoken  of,  and 
of  which  he  was  half  ashamed   and  half  defiant, 


SIGNA.  73 


and  which  therefore  he  woukl  never  admit  that 
he  regretted,  living  on  in  silence  with  her 
under  the  same  roof,  trusting  to  chance. 

And  chance  came — the  chance  that  one  summer 
morning  the  bed  of  Pi^^i^a  was  empty,  and  old 
Viola,  coming  in  with  a  sheaf  of  green  cane  for 
her  donke}',  told  them  how  she  had  met  the 
girl,  and  of  her  farewell  words. 

Shut  his  eyes  as  he  would,  he  saw  her  so, 
amongst  the  purple  beanflowers  that  night  when 
his  heart  had  swelled  a  little  at  sight  of  her,  and 
he  had  been  half  inclined  to  tell  her  he  was 
sorry  for  that  blow,  and  then  had  felt  the  pride 
rise  in  him,  and  had  said  to  himself  that 
the  girl  had  deserved  it — disobeying  him,  and 
then  jesting  at  him — and  so  had  struck  across 
the  rustling  corn,  and  let  her  go  without  a 
word. 

And  now  she  was  dead — gone  out  on  the  flood 
to  the  sea ;  and  he  had  never  told  her  that  he 
had  been  sorry  for  the  stab,  and  never  could  tell 
her  now. 

AVould  God  tell  her?  or  any  one  of  the 
saints  ? 


SIGN  A. 


Bruno  wondered.  He  felt  as  if  that  dead 
woman  whom  the  river  had  got  stood  for  ever 
between  him  and  all  the  hosts  of  heaven. 

He  was  a  strong  man,  and  his  emotions  and  his 
intelligence  were  both  unawakened,  and  his  life 
was  much  like  that  of  his  own  plough  bullocks ; 
but  he  shuddered  through  all  his  limbs  as  he 
rose  up  from  the  wooden  settle  and  faced  the 
day.  Work  with  the  labourer  is  an  instinct,  as 
watching  is  the  house-dog's  ;  and  pain  may  stifle 
it  for  a  moment,  but  no  more. 

He  went  out  and  unloosed  the  bar  of  the 
stable-doors,  and  brought  out  his  oxen,  and 
muzzled  them  and  yoked  them  together,  and 
drove  them  out  over  the  steep  slanting  fields 
that  ran  upward  and  downward,  and  were  in- 
tersected by  lines  of  maples  and  mulberries  with 
the  leafless  vines  clinging  to  them,  and  by 
watercourses  cut  deep  that  the  rain  might  be 
borne  down  the  mountain  side,  and  by  wild 
hedges  of  briony  and  rose  and  arbutus,  with  here 
and  there  winter-red  leaves  of  creepers  that  the 
winds  had  forgotten  to  blow  away. 

It  was  a  grey  morning,  with  heavy  white  mists 


SIGN  A.  75 


lying  over  all  the  valley  down  below ;  and  on  the 
high  hills  it  was  very  cold.  Bruno  drove  his 
meek  large-eyed  beasts  through  the  black  earth 
with  a  heavy  heart. 

He  seemed  always  to  see  Pippa  as  she  had 
used  to  come,  when  their  father  lived,  and  she 
was  a  child,  with  a  black  loaf  and  a  flask  of  wine, 
out  to  them  on  the  hill  in  the  ploughing  time, 
and  stroked  the  bullocks,  and  put  round  their 
leathern  frontlets  gay  wreaths  of  anemones, 
I)urple  and  red  and  blue,  or  the  berries  of  the 
beautiful  corbezzolo. 

And  now  she  was  dead — stone  dead — like  the 
mouse  the  share  killed  in  the  furrow. 

The  bullocks,  well  used  to  goad  and  curse, 
turned  their  broad  foreheads  and  looked  at  him 
with  luminous  fond  eyes :  he  was  so  gentle 
with  them — they  were  grateful,  but  they  won- 
dered why. 

Bruno  ploughed  all  day,  and  the  wind  blew  up 
from  the  sea,  and  he  felt  as  if  it  were  blowing  her 
long  wet  hair  against  him. 

"  I  will  do  good  by  the  child,  so  help  me , 

and   perhaps  they  will   tell  her  in  heaven,"  he 


SIGNA. 


said  to  himself,  as  he  went  to  and  fro  up  and 
down  the  shelving  fields  underneath  the  lines  of 
the  leafless  trees. 

*' Perhaps  they  will  tell  her  in  heaven?"  he 
thought,  as  he  went  over  the  heavy  wet  clods  in 
the  mist. 


CHAPTER   VI. 


Brunone  Marcillo,  alwa3's  known  as  Bruno, 
did  what  all  his  people  had  always  done  for 
seven  hundred  centuries  and  more. 

They  had  been  vassals  and  spearmen  in  tho 
old  warlike  times,  and  well-to-do  contadini  ever 
afterwards  ;  giving  their  sons,  when  need  arose, 
to  die  in  the  common  cause  of  the  native  soil, 
but  otherwise  never  stirring  off  their  own  hill- 
side ;  good  husbandmen,  bold  men,  fierce  haters, 
honest  neighbours,  keeping  their  women-kind 
strictly,  and  letting  their  males  have  as  much 
license  as  was  compatible  with  unremitting  and 
patient  labour  in  all  seasons. 

They  were  a  race  remarkable  for  physical 
beauty — a  beauty  that  is  stricth^  national ;    the 


SIGNA. 


dark  straight -browed  classic  beauty  which 
Giotto  has  put  in  his  Garden  of  Olives,  and 
Signorelli  given  to  his  noble  Prophets. 

They  had  always  intermarried  with  mountain 
races  like  their  own,  or  taken  wives  from  the 
Lastra  households,  where  the  ancient  blood 
ran  pure.  The  father  of  Brunone  and  Lippo 
had  done  otherwise ;  he  had  taken  a  work- 
girl  of  the  city,  a  pretty  feckless  thing,  whom 
he  had  seen  one  market  night  that  he  had 
strayed  into  the  Loggia  theatre,  when  a  good 
harvest  had  put  too  much  loose  cash  in  his 
pockets,  and  the  humours  of  Cimarosa's  Nemici 
Generosi  had  been  making  hini  laugh  till  he 
cried. 

The  girl  had  become  to  him  a  good  wife 
enough,  nobody  had  denied  that;  but  she  was 
not  of  the  stern  stuff  that  the  Marcillo  house- 
wives always  had  been,  with  their  busts  of  Ceres 
and  their  brows  of  Juno,  their  arms  that  could 
guide  the  oxen  and  their  heads  that  could  balance 
a  wine-barrel. 

She  was  timid,  and  some  said  false,  though 
that   was    never   proved,    and   she  had  not  the 


SIGNA.  *        79 


liill-born  strength  of  mind  and  body  that  these 
people  who  had  lived  nigh  a  thousand  jeavs  in 
the  same  air  possessed. 

Her  second  son,  Filippo,  or  Lipi)o,  inherited  her 
constitution,  and  with  it  her  supplicating  caress 
of  manner  and  her  timidity — perhaps  her  false- 
ness too ;  but  the  Lastra  did  not  think  so  ;  the 
Lastra  was  fond  of  Lippo,  though  he  had  de- 
serted the  ways  of  his  fathers,  and  dwelt  in  an 
idleness  not  altogether  creditable  and  altogether 
alien  to  the  habits  of  his  race,  who  had  alwaj^s 
been  used  to  labour  together,  father  and  sons, 
and  often  grandsons,  all  under  the  same  roof  and 
on  the  same  fields,  generation  after  generation. 

When  the  large  family  dwindled  down  to  the 
one  man,  it  was  out  of  custom  to  leave  so  much 
land  to  a  solitary  labourer.  But  Brunone  Mar- 
cillo  was  a  favourite  with  his  master,  and  one  of 
the  best  husbandmen  in  the  province;  besides 
he  was  sure  to  marry  and  fill  the  house,  they 
thought,  so  he  was  left  undisturbed,  and  the 
land  suffered  nothing ;  for  though  he  loved  his 
pleasure  in  a  wild  lawless  way,  and  took  fierce 
fits  of  it  at  times,  he  was  devoted  to  his  home- 


80  SIGNA. 


stead  and  liis  work,  and  loved  liis  birthplace  with 
that  fast-rooted  love  of  the  Tuscan  which  makes 
the  little  red  roof  under  the  red  waning  skies,  on 
the  solitary  upland,  or  in  the  silent  marsh,  or 
amidst  the  blue-flowered  fields  of  flax,  or  above 
the  thyme-covered,  wind-blown  hills  by  the  sea, 
more  precious  and  more  lovely  than  any  greater 
fate  or  fairer  gifts  elsewhere. 

All  alone  on  his  little  farm  Bruno  became  a 
man  well  to  do,  and  who  could  have  put  monej^ 
by  had  he  not  loved  women  so  well — so  they 
said. 

It  was  a  broad  rich  piece  of  land  that  went 
with  the  dwelling  house  he  occupied.  He  grew 
wheat,  and  maize,  and  beans,  and  artichokes,  and 
had  several  sturdy  fig-trees  that  yielded  richly, 
and  noble  olives  that  numbered  their  hundred 
years,  and  the  vines  that  marched  with  his  corn 
were  amongst  the  best  in  the  Signa  country. 

The  half  of  all  its  produce  was  his,  according 
to  the  way  of  the  land  and  the  provisions  of 
custom,  and  the  house  was  a  better  one  than 
most  of  its  degree  ;  and  the  fields  that  were  his 
lay  well  on  the  open  hillside,  sun-swept,  as  was 


SIGNA.  81 

•wanted  by  vines  and  gram  both,  but  sheltered 
from  cold  winds  b}'  the  jutting  out  of  the 
quarried  rocks  and  the  woods  of  ilex  and  ^nne 
that  were  above. 

Bruno  w^as  a  laborious  workman,  and  was 
skilled  in  field  labour ;  he  knew  how  to  make  an 
ear  of  barley  bear  double,  and  how  to  keej)  blight 
away,  and  the  fly  from  the  vine. 

He  could  not  read ;  he  could  not  write ;  his 
notions  of  God  were  shut  up  in  a  little  square 
coloured  picture,  framed  and  hung  up  over  the 
gateway  into  his  fields  to  bring  a  blessing  there  ,* 
his  idea  of  political  dut}'  was  comprised  in  hating 
any  one  who  taxed  him,  and  being  ready  to 
shoot  any  one  who  raised  the  impost  on  grain  ; 
but  he  was  a  husbandman  after  Virgil's  own 
heart;  he  wanted  no  world  beyond  the  waving 
of  his  corn,  and  if  a  steer  were  sick,  or  when 
the  grapes  were  ripe,  he  took  no  sleep,  but 
watched  all  night,  loving  his  cattle  and  his 
fruits  as  poets  their  verse  or  kings  their 
armies. 

On  the  whole  Bruno  led  a  contented  and  pros- 
perous life,  and  if  he  had  not  been  so  ready  with 

VOL.    I.  G 


82  SIGN  A. 


his  wrath,  might  have  been  welcome  in  all  house- 
holds ;  and  if  he  had  not  been  over  fond  of  those 
fairs  in  all  the  little  towns  where  wandering 
players  set  up  their  little  music  booths,  and  of 
the  women  that  he  found  there,  and  of  the 
license  that  is  always  to  be  had  by  any  man 
whose  money-bag  has  its  mouth  open  and  its 
stomach  filled,  might  also  have  become  a  very 
wealthy  man  in  his  own  way.  But  he  was 
fierce,  and  every  one  feared  him,  and  he  was 
improvident,  and  every  one  fl^eeced  him.  And 
he  was  lax  and  lawless  in  his  loves,  and  had  a 
dangerous  name  in  the  country  side  amongst  the 
mothers  of  maidens. 

So  that  he  of  all  men  had  had  no  title  to  be 
hard  upon  Pippa :  and  3^et  hard  he  had  been 
always. 

The  most  amorous  men  and  the  wildest  are 
usually  the  most  exacting  of  virtue  and  modesty 
in  their  own  women. 

He  had  always  hated  her  :  yes,  honestly  hated 
her  he  told  himself;  and  as  she  grew  up  into 
girlhood,  and  they  were  shut  alone  in  the  same 
house,  always  opposed  one  to  another,  Pippa's 


SIGNA.  83 


idleness,  and  sauciness,  and  rebellion  against 
liomekeeping,  and  passion  for  dancing,  and  stray- 
ing and  idling,  infuriated  hiin  against  her  more 
and  more  with  every  day  that  dawned. 

Bruno,  with  all  his  excesses,  never  neglected  or 
slurred  over  his  labour.  The  land  and  its  needs 
were  always  first  with  him.  He  would  have  had 
his  sister  one  of  those  maidens,  numerous  around 
him,  who  asked  nothing  better  than  the  daily 
round  of  household  and  field  duties ;  who  could 
reap  as  well  as  a  man;  who  could  harness 
an  ox  and  guide  him;  and  who  were  busy  from 
dusk  of  dawn  to  nightfall  hoeing,  drawing 
water,  spinning,  plaiting,  shelling  beans,  rearing 
chickens,  drying  tomatoes,  setting  cauHflowers, 
thinning  fruit-trees,  winding  silk  off  the  cocoons, 
and  went  to  bed  with  tired  limbs  and  a  light 
conscience,  never  dreaming  of  more  pleasure 
than  a  stroll  on  a  feast-day  with  a  neighbour,  or 
a  new  white  linen  skirt  for  some  grand  chmxli 
function. 

"Why  was  not  Pippa  like  that?"  he  had 
asked  himself,  angrily,  ten  thousand  times,  in- 
stead of  a  giii  that  would  hardly  do  as  much 


84  SIGN  A. 


as   tie  up  a  few  bunches    of  carnations    or    S. 
Catherine  lilies  for  the  market. 

The  Marcillo  women  had  always  been  reared 
in  strong  usefulness  and  in  stern  chastity.  This 
handsome,  buoyant,  gay,  insolent,  idle  thing 
offended  him  in  every  way  and  at  ever}^ 
turn. 

He  would  have  married  her  away  willing!}',  and 
dowered  her  well,  to  the  first  honest  fellow ;  but 
Pippa  had  laughed  in  the  faces  of  all  the  neigh- 
bours' sons  who  had  wanted  her  to  wed  with 
them.     She  was  in  no  hurry,  she  said. 

She  made  all  the  countrj^side  in  love  with  her, 
and  then  turned  her  back  on  it  with  a  saucy  laugh, 
and  the  sunshine  in  her  face  was  never  merrier 
then  whenever  she  heard  that  two  young  fellows 
had  quarrelled  about  her,  and  drawn  knives  on 
one  another,  and  set  all  the  Lastra  talldng. 

So  that  when  Pippa  disappeared  many  were 
glad,  and  none  very  sorry.  Bruno  smarted  with 
shame — that  was  all. 

Indeed,  when  she  was  gone  away,  the  towns- 
folk talked  of  a  foreigner,  a  student  and 
painter,    who    had   been   seen  with   the  girl  at 


8IGNA.  85 


evening  on  the  road,  or  by  the  river,  or  in  the 
shadow  of  the  old  Lastra  bastions  ;  a  young  man 
with  a  delicate  face,  and  a  playful  way,  and  a 
gay  tongue,  who  had  wandered  on  foot,  with  his 
knapsack  and  colours,  down  from  the  Savo}^ 
country  and  into  Tuscany,  and  had  danced  often 
with  Pippa,  and  had  been  met  with  her  after 
sunset,  on  the  hillside. 

But  none  had  told  Bruno  till  too  late,  being 
afraid  of  his  too  read}^  knife  if  a  hint  were  taken 
wrong,  and  he  had  known  nothing  of  these  tales 
until  Pippa  had  vanished,  and  even  then  the 
neighbours  were  slow  to  rouse  his  wrath  by 
telling  the  scanty  rumours  they  had  heard. 

Even  the  young  man's  name  the  people  had 
not  known ;  a  youngster  lightly  come  and  lightly 
gone,  whom  no  one  took  account  of,  till  of  a 
sudden  they  noticed  that  he  had  been  unseen 
since  Pippa  had  been  missing.  He  had  lodged 
a  little  while  above  a  wine  shop,  and  gone  up 
and  down  the  river,  and  to  and  from  the  old  white 
town,  painting ;  and  had  danced  at  the  fairs  and 
learned  to  strum  on  a  guitar,  and  eaten  piles  of 
fruit,  and  been  restless  and  graceful  as  a  firefly  : 


86  SIGKA. 


that  was  all ;  and  only  a  few  women  had  observed 
as  much  as  that. 

It  told  nothing  to  Bruno  ;  and,  besides,  if 
they  had  told  him  a  hundred  times  as  much, 
he  could  have  done  nothing;  a  contadino  is 
rooted  to  the  soil,  and  it  no  more  would  have 
seemed  possible  to  him  to  travel  into  far  coun- 
tries than  to  have  used  his  ploughshare  for  a 
boat,  or  driven  his  steers  to  turn  the  sea  like 
sod. 

People  had  hardly  ever  thought  what  Pippa's 
fate  had  been.  If  anything  great  had  come  to 
her,  the  countryside  would  have  heard  of  it. 

In  these  little  ancient  burghs  and  hillside  vil- 
lages, scattered  up  and  down  between  mountain 
and  sea,  there  is  often  some  boy  or  girl,  with  a 
more  wonderful  voice,  or  a  more  beautiful  face, 
or  a  sweeter  knack  of  song,  or  a  more  vivid 
trick  of  improvisation  than  the  others ;  and  this 
boy  or  gul  strays  away  some  day  with  a  little 
bundle  of  clothes,  and  a  coin  or  two,  or  is 
fetched  away  by  some  far-sighted  pedlar  in  such 
human  wares,  who  buys  them  as  bird  fanciers 
buy  the  finches  from  the  nets ;  and  then,  years 


SIGNA. 


and  years  afterwards,  the  town  or  hamlet  hears 
indistinctly  of  some  great  prima  donna,  or  of 
some  lark-throated  tenor,  that  the  big  world  is 
making  happy  as  kings,  and  rich  as  kings' 
treasurers,  and  the  people  carding  the  flax  or 
shelling  the  chestnuts  say  to  one  another,  "  That 
was  little  black  Lia,  or  that  was  our  old  Momo  ;  " 
but  Momo    or  Lia  the  village    or  the  vinefield 

V 

never  sees  again. 

If  an3^thing  great  had  come  in  that  sort  of 
vray  to  Pippa,  Signa  would  have  heard  of  it. 
There  is  alwa^'s  someone  to  tell  of  a  success 
— always  someone  to  bring  word,  so  that  the 
friends  may  gird  up  their  loins,  and  go  and 
smell  out  the  spoil,  claim  the  share  of  it,  and 
remind  Momo,  as  he  comes  out  of  a  palace,  of 
his  barefoot  babjdiood,  and  call  to  Lia's  mind 
the  time  when  she,  who  now  quarrels  with 
princes,  was  glad  of  the  day's  bran-bread. 

But  none  had  ever  said  anything  of  Pippa.  She 
had  dropped  out  of  sight  and  remembrance,  and 
no  one  had  asked  what  had  become  of  her,  though 
the  girl  had  been  beautiful  in  her  way,  darkly, 
brightly,  roughly,  tenderly,  capriciously  beautiful, 


88  SIGNA. 


like  the  barley  blowing  from  shade  to  sun — onl}^ 
no  man  ever  would  stand  her  temper,  said  the 
w^omen. 

That  had  been  conceded  everywhere  :  and  her 
brothers  had  been  pitied. 

.  Between  the  day  that  she  had  gone  over  the 
fields  with  the  farewell  word  to  old  Viola  and  the 
night  that  she  had  stumbled  to  her  death,  over 
the  sea,  in  the  dark  road,  no  one  had  ever  heard 
or  known  anything  of  Pippa. 

But  it  was  not  because  her  story  was  a  strange 
one ;  it  was  only  because  it  w^as  so  common. 
Mystery  is  to  the  tongue  of  the  storyteller  as 
butter  to  the  hungry  mongrel ;  but  what  is 
simple  is  passed  over  by  human  mouths  as  daisies 
by  the  grazing  horse. 

Her  tale  was  very  simple. 

That  fair-day  in  Signa  she  had  been  so  reso- 
lute to  go  to  the  merrj^-making,  because  of  the 
stranger,  who  would  whirl  to  the  thrum  of  the 
mandolin  as  a  bat  does  when  a  lamp  burns,  and 
who  would  come  through  the  beanflowers  to  see 
her  plait  straw  when  her  brothers  were  out  in 
the  fields,   and  who  was  gay  like   herself,    and 


SIGNA.  m 


passionate,  and  young,  and  found  but  one  song 
worth  the  smging  when  the  sun  went  down  and 
the  fireflies  burned. 

Then  there  had  come  Bruno's  bh)w,  and  the 
stab  in  her  breast — and  all  a  man's  natural 
passion  of  s^'mpathy  had  been  aroused,  and  all  a 
girl's  terror  of  her  fierce  brother's  worse  ven- 
geance, if  only  the  truth  were  known. 

And  so  her  lover  took  her  with  him  when  he 
went  back  to  France,  wliile  the  beanflowers 
faded  and  died;  and  Pippa  loved  him  like  a 
dog  :  —  x:)oor  Pippa  !  who  always  having  been 
so  saucy  of  tongue,  and  stubborn  of  neck, 
and  proud,  and  full  of  i^etulance,  clung  like  a 
vine,  and  crouched  like  a  spaniel,  and  trembled 
like  a  leaf,  when  once  she  loved,  as  all  such 
women  do. 

Thus  the  broad  shining  Tuscan  fields  were 
changed  for  streets  of  Paris,  and  the  liills  of 
olive  for  the  roofs  of  lead  ;  and  the  song  of  the 
grilli  for  the  beat  of  the  drum  ;  and  the  fires  of 
the  lucciole  for  the  shine  of  the  gas  ;  and  Pippa, 
a  thing  of  sun  and  wind,  and  seablown  air,  fresh 
as  a  fruit  and  free  as  a  bird,  was  cooped  up  in 


90  SIGNA. 


a  student's  attic,  with  the  roar  of  the  traffic  for 
ever  on  her  ear,  and  the  glistening  zinc  of  her 
neighbour's  house-roofs  for  ever  before  her 
casement. 

He  did  what  he  could  for  her. 

He  was  a  landscape  painter  and  a  student  of 
Paris.  He  had  a  beautiful  face,  great  dreams, 
ardent  passions,  and  no  mone}^,  except  such 
little  i^ittance  as  an  old  doting  mother,  a  widow 
in  a  little  Breton  hamlet,  could  send  him,  by 
pinching  herself  of  oil  and  bread.  For  three 
months  he  worshipped  Pippa ;  and  this  scarlet 
l)oppy  from  the  Tuscan  wheat  glowed  on  a 
hundred  canvases  in  a  hundred  forms;  and 
then  of  course  he  tired.  Then,  of  course,  the 
poppy  ceased  to  be  a  magical  flower  of  passion 
and  of  sleep ;  it  seemed  only  a  red  bubble, 
blowing  useless  in  the  useful  corn. 

He  thought  he  hid  this  from  her ;  but  she 
felt,  before  he  knew,  it.  Women  will  always 
do  so  who  love  their  lives  out  in  a  year,  as  Pippa 
did. 

The  Mimis,  and  Bibis,  and  Libis  around  her 
were  happy  enough,  with  a  pot  of   mignonette 


SIGNA.  91 


for  their  garden,  and  a  theatre  for  their  heaven, 
and  a  Sunday  in  the  woods  now  and  then  for  their 
liberty.  Besides,  they  could  all  chatter  with  one 
another,  and  change  their  lovers,  if  need  was, 
and  sing  little  triplets,  like  little  canaries,  as 
they  sat  sewing  at  rose-coloured  hall-skirts,  or 
twirluig  uj)  their  cambric  mock-rosebuds. 

But  Pippa  was  in  exile.  Pippa  had  the  woman's 
worst  crime  of  loving  over  much.  Pippa  had 
brought  nothing  with  her  but  her  own  full,  fierce, 
fond,  little  heart  of  storm.  Pippa  felt  her  heart 
break  in  this  cage. 

Pippa  could  not  read.  Pippa  knew  nothing 
that  he  tallied  of,  except  when  he  told  her  that 
he  loved  her,  and  men  get  weary  of  saying  this 
too  long  to  the  same  woman.  Pippa  could  only 
plait  straw — and  that  not  very  well ;  and  no  one 
wanted  it  m  Paris. 

Pippa,  when  in  the  dance-gardens,  one  night, 
struck  with  a  knife  at  a  man  who  would  have 
kissed  her,  and  wounded  him  sorel}^,  and  when 
hidden  away  from  the  perils  that  arose,  could  not 
be  made  to  see  she  had  done  wrong,  because 
Bruno  had  stabbed  her,  and  she  had  borne  him  no 


92  SIGXA. 


malice,  and  here  she  was  on  her  just  defence,  and 
had  done  right,  she  thought.  Then  her  lover 
grew  wroth  with  lier,  and  Pippa,  whose  spirit  was 
broken,  like  that  of  all  fiery  creatures  when  they 
love,  could  only  sob  and  kiss  his  feet ;  and  then, 
— he  wxnt  elsewhere. 

Then  came  hard  winters,  and  a  cr3ing  child, 
and  the  garret  was  cold  and  empty,  and  debt 
stole  in  like  a  ghost,  and  hunger  with  him,  and 
Pippa  sold  her  pearls — real  pearls,  fished  up 
from  the  deep  sea  by  coral  divers,  and  w^orn  at 
fairs  and  feasts  b}"  her  with  the  honest  i3ride  of 
the  true  Tuscan  peasant.  Only  she  never  let 
him  know  the  pearls  were  sold.  She  made  him 
think  that  it  was  one  of  his  own  pictures  which 
had  brought  them  that  little  heap  of  gold. 

But  that  money  lasted  very  little  time,  and  the 
child  sickened  and  died,  and  the  summer  came  ; 
but  that  would  not  banish  hunger ;  and  Pippa 
lost  her  beauty,  and  her  rich,  round,  radiant  look, 
and  her  great  brown  eyes  got  a  frightened  look — 
because  he  so  seldom  kissed  her  now,  and  some- 
times would  give  her  a  little  gesture  like  that 
wdiich  a  man  gives  when  he  sweej^s  awa}^  quickl}^ 


SIGN  A.  93 


with  his  elbow  some  dead  flower  or  dropped  ashes. 
Yet  still  he  was  good  to  her — oh,  yes — he  was 
good.  Pippa  told  herself  so  a  thousand  times  a 
day.  He  never  beat  her.  Pippa,  once  so  saucy 
and  so  proud,  was  grateful.     Love  is  thus. 

Then  another  winter  came,  the  third  one — 
that  was  hardest.  They  had  nothing  to  eat  for 
many  days.  They  sold  their  clothes  and  their 
bed-linen,  and  even  the  copper  pot  in  which  their 
food  w^as  stewed ;  and  she  had  no  more  pearls. 

Pippa  had  nothing  either  of  her  beauty  left  but 
her  straight  brows  and  her  big,  lustrous  eyes.  She 
w^as  no  longer  even  a  bright  bubble,  as  the  field 
poppy  was.  She  was  a  little  dusky  peasant,  pale 
and  starved,  and  blown  amongst  the  snow  like  a 
frozen  redbreast. 

"It  is  the  pictures  he  cares  for,"  she  had 
learned  to  say  to  herself.  She  had  found  this 
out.  She  got  to  hate  them,  the  senseless  things 
of  wood  and  colour,  that  cost  so  much  money, 
and  now  had  all  his  looks,  all  his  longings,  all 
his  memories,  all  his  regrets. 

She  hated  even  those  canvas  likenesses  of 
herself,  that  had  blossomed  into  being  with  the 


94  SIGN  A. 


purple  beanflowers,  under   the  summer  suns  of 
Signa,  wlien  their  passion  was  new-born. 

Pippa  loved  her  lover  with  the  same  love, 
fierce,  and  faithful,  and  dog-like,  and  ['measure- 
less, as  when  he  had  first  taken  her  small  head 
within  his  hands,  and  kissed  her  on  the  eyes 
and  mouth. 

But  it  was  a  love  that  could  understand 
nothing  :  least  of  all,  change. 

One  day,  in  the  bitterness  of  the  mid-winter, 
after  weeks  of  hunger,  and  the  shameful  straits 
of  the  small  debts  that  make  the  commonest  acts 
and  needs  of  daily  life  a  byword  and  reproach,  she 
woke  to  find  herself  alone. 

There  were  twenty  gold  pieces  on  the  bed, 
long  stript  of  all  its  covering,  and  a  written  line 
or  two.  She  took  the  paper  to  the  woman  of 
the  house  below,  who  read  it  to  her.  It  told 
her  that  he  was  gone  to  Dresden  to  copy  a 
famous  picture  for  a  wealthy  man  ;  he  sent  her 
all  the  sum  they  had  advanced  him,  and  said 
a  little  phrase  or  two  of  sorrow  and  of  part- 
ing, and  of  hope  of  better  days,  and  of  the 
unbearable   pain   of    such  beggary  as  they  had 


SIGNA.  95 


known.     He  spoke  vaguely  of  some  union  in  the 
future. 

Pippa  cast  the  twenty  gold  pieces  into  the  mud 
of  the  street,  where  the  poor  scrambled  and 
clutched  and  fought  for  them.  She  understood 
that  she  was  forsaken. 

All  he  had  said  was  true ;  but  the  great 
truth  was  what  he  had  not  said.  Pippa  was 
ignorant  of  almost  everything ;  but  this  she  knew 
enough  to  know. 

That  night  they  took  her  to  a  madhouse,  and 
cut  close  the  long  brown  braids  of  her  hair,  and 
fastened  together  the  feet  that  had  used  to  fly,  as 
the  wind  flies,  through  the  paths  of  the  vines  in 
summer. 

Poor  Pippa  !  She  had  always  plaited  ill ;  the 
women  had  always  said  so. 

In  half-a-year's  time  she  gave  birth  to  a  child, 
and  her  reason  came  back  to  her,  and  after  a 
time  they  let  her  go.  She  promised  to  go  to 
her  own  countr3\ 

But  she  cheated  them,  and  went  to  Dresden. 
She  had  kept  that  name  in  her  mind.  She  got 
there  as  best  she  could,  begging  on  the  way  or 


i)C  SIGNA. 

working ;  but  of  Avork  she  knew  so  little,  and  of 
Avorkers  there  are  so  man3\  She  carried  the 
child  all  the  way.  Sometimes  people  were  good 
to  her  ;  sometimes  they  were  bad ;  oftenest  the}^ 
were  neither  one  nor  the  other.  Indifference  is 
the  invincible  giant  of  the  world. 

When  she  reached  Dresden  it  was  summer. 
The  city  was  empty. 

With  much  trouble  she  heard  of  him.  The 
copy  was  done,  and  he  was  gone  back  to  France. 

"  Perhaps  he  does  not  want  you.  If  he  wanted 
you  he  would  not  leave  you,"  said  a  comely 
woman,  who  was  sorry  for  her,  but  who  spoke  as 
she  thought,  giving  her  a  roll  of  bread  under  a 
tree  in  the  street. 

"  Perhaps  he  does  not  want  me,"  thought 
Pippa.  The  words  awoke  her  memory.  She 
had  been  left  by  him.  He  would  not  have  left 
her  unless  he  had  been  tired — tired  of  all  the 
poverty  and  all  the  pain,  and  of  the  passion  that 
had  lost  its  glow,  as  the  poppy  loses  its  colour 
once  being  reaped  with  the  wheat. 

There  was  a  dull  fierce  pain  in  her.  There 
were  times  when  she  wished  to  kill  him.     Then 


SIGNA.  97 


at  other  times  she  would  see  a  look  of  his  face  in 
the  child's,  and  would  break  into  an  anguish  of 
weeping. 

Anyway,  she  set  backward  to  find  him. 
Carrying  the  child,  that  grew  heavier  with 
each  day,  and  travelling  sometimes  with  gipsies 
and  vagrants,  and  mountebanks,  but  more  often 
alone,  and  begging  her  bread  on  the  way,  she  got 
back  into  France  after  many  months.  She  had 
got  stupid  and  stunned  with  fatigue  and  with 
pain.  She  had  lost  all  look  of  youth,  but  she 
kept  the  child  as  fresh  as  a  rose  ;  and  now  and 
then  she  would  smile,  because  his  mouth  laughed 
like  her  lover's. 

Back  into  Paris  she  went.  The  strange  for- 
tunes that  shelter  the  wretched  kept  her  in 
health  and  in  strength,  though  she  rarely  had  a 
roof  over  her  at  night,  and  all  she  ate  were  the 
broken  pieces  that  people  gave  her  in  pity. 

In  his  old  haunts  it  was  easy  to  hear  of  him  ; 
he  had  gone  to  study  in  Rome. 

"  He  will  do  well  for  himself,  never  fear,"  they 
said  in  the  old  house  on  the  Seine  water,  where 
her  dream  of  joy  had  dreamt  itself  away.     Some 


SIGNA. 


great  person,  touched  by  his  poverty  and  genius, 
and  perhaps  by  his  beauty,  had  given  him  means 
to  pursue  the  high  purposes  of  his  art  at  leisure. 
Some  said  the  great  person  was  a  woman,  and  a 
princess  :  no  one  knew  for  sure.  Anyhow,  he 
was  gone  to  Rome. 

Pippa  knew  the  name  of  Rome. 

People  had  gone  through  Signa  sometimes,  to 
wind  away  by  the  sea  road,  amongst  the 
marshes  and  along  the  fiat  sickly  shores,  to  Rome. 
And  now  and  then  through  Signa,  at  fair  time, 
or  on  feast  days,  there  had  strayed  little 
children,  in  goatskins,  and  with  strange  pipes, 
who  played  sad  airs,  and  said  they  were  from 
Rome. 

But  the  mountains  had  always  risen  between 
her  and  Rome.  It  had  always  been  to  her  far 
off  as  some  foreign  land.  Nevertheless,  she  set 
out  for  Rome  by  the  sole  way  she  kneAv — the 
way  that  she  had  travelled  with  him — straight 
across  France  and  downward  to  the  sea,  and 
along  the  beautiful  bold  road,  under  the  palm 
trees  and  the  sea  alps,  and  so  along  the  Corniche 
back  to  Signa. 


SIGNA.  99 


She  knew  that  way ;  and,  toilsome  though  it 
Avas,  it  was  made  sweet  to  her  by  remembered  joys. 

He  had  gone  with  her;  and  at  every  halt- 
ing i^lace  there  was  some  memory  so  precious, 
yet  so  terrible,  that  it  would  have  been  death 
to  her,  only  the  child  was  there,  and  wanted  her, 
and  had  his  smile,  and  so  held  her  on  to  life. 

Her  lover  had  been  with  her  in  the  summer  and 
autumn  weather  ;  and  all  the  way  had  been  made 
mirthful  with  love's  happy  foolish  ways  ;  and  the 
dust  of  the  road  had  been  as  gold  to  her,  because 
of  the  sweet  words  he  murmured  in  her  ear ;  and 
when  they  were  tired  they  had  leaned  in  one  an- 
other's arms,  and  been  at  rest ;  and  every  moonlit 
night  and  rosy  morning  had  been  made  beauti- 
ful, because  of  what  they  read  in  each  other  eyes 
and  heard  in  the  beatmg  of  each  other's  hearts. 

Pippa  had  forgotten  nothing ;  she  had  only 
forgotten  that  she  had  been  forsaken. 

Women  are  so  slow  to  understand  this  always  ; 
and  she,  since  that  day  when  she  had  flung  the 
money  in  the  street,  and  fallen  like  a  furious 
thing,  biting  the  dust,  and  laughing  horribly,  had 
never  been  too  clear  of  what  had  happened  to  her. 

]r  2 


100  SIGNA. 


There  was  the  child,  and  he — her  love — was 
lost.     This  was  all  she  knew. 

Only  she  remembered  every  trifle,  every 
moment  of  their  first  love  time  ;  and  as  she 
went,  walking  across  great  countries  as  other 
women  cross  a  hayfield  or  a  village  street,  she 
would  look  at  the  rose-bush  at  a  cabin  door, 
and  think  how  he  had  plucked  a  rosebud  there  ; 
or  touch  a  gate  rail  with  her  lips,  because  his 
hand  had  rested  on  it ;  or  lift  the  child  to  kiss 
a  wayside  crucifix,  because  he  had  hung  a  rope 
of  woodbine  there  and  painted  it  one  noonday ; 
and  at  each  step  would  murmur  to  the  child, 
"  See,  he  was  here — and  here — and  here — and 
here,"  and  would  fancy  that  the  baby  under- 
stood, and  slept  the  sweeter  because  told  these 
things. 

Poor  Pippa  ! — she  had  always  plaited  ill. 

Women  do,  whose  only  strand  is  one  short 
human  love. 

The  tress  will  run  uneven ;  and  no  man  wants 
it  long.  Still,  it  is  best  to  love  thus.  For 
nothing  else  is  Love. 

So  she  had  walked  on,  till  the  golden  autumn 


SIGN  A.  101 


weather  lost  its  serenit}^,  and  stirred  with  strife 
of  winter  wind  and  rain;  so  she  had  walked, 
and  walked,  and  walked — a  beggar  girl  for  all 
who  met  her,  with  no  beauty  in  her,  except  her 
great,  sad,  lustrous  eyes — until  she  found  herself 
come  out  once  more  on  that  familial'  road  which 
she  had  trodden  daily  in  her  childhood  and  her 
girlhood,  with  her  hank  of  straw  over  her  arm, 
and  a  j^itcher  of  milk,  or  a  sheaf  of  gleaned 
corn,  or  a  broad  basket  of  mulberries  balanced 
on  her  head. 

She  thought  she  would  see  Bruno — ;just  once. 
He  had  been  rough  and  fierce  with  her;  but 
once  she  could  have  loved  Bruno,  if  he  would 
ever  have  let  her  do  so.  She  thought  she  would 
show  him  the  child,  and  ask  him — if  she  never 
got  to  Rome 

Then  her  foot  slipped,  and  she  fell  dow^n  into 
darkness,  and  of  Pippa  there  was  no  more  on 
earth — onty  a  dead  woman,  that  the  flood  took 
out,  with  the  drowned  cattle  and  the  driftwood, 
to  the  sea. 


CHAPTER   VII. 


Local  tradition  has  it  that  all  this  plain  of 
Signa  was  once  a  lake  with  only  the  marsh  birds 
calling  and  the  reeds  waving  in  the  great  silence 
of  its  waters — long  ago.  Their  "  long  ago  "  is  very 
dim  in  date  and  distance,  but  very  close  to  fanc}^ 
and  to  faith.  Here  ^neas  is  a  hero  born  only 
yesterday,  and  Catiline  brought  his  secret  sins 
into  the  refuge  of  these  hills  an  hour  since  it 
seems;  and  Hercules — one  can  almost  see  him 
still,  bending  his  bold  brows  over  the  stubborn 
rock  in  that  stream  where  the  quail  dips  her  wing 
and  the  distaif  cane  bends  to  the  breeze. 

Nay,  it  is  not  so  very  far  away  after  all 
since  [the  dove  plucked  the  olive  off  the  moun- 


8IGNA.  103 


tains  yonder,  and  no  one  sees  anything  strange 
or  incongruous  in  the  stories  that  make  the 
sons  of  Enoch  and  the  chiklren  of  Latona 
tread  these  fields  side  by  side,  and  the  silver 
arrows  of  Apollo  cleave  the  sunshine  that  the 
black  crucifixes  pierce.  Nay,  older  than  tale 
of  the  Dove  or  legend  of  Apollo  is  this  soil. 
Turn  it  ^dth  joviv  spade  and  you  shall  find 
the  stone  cofiins  and  the  gold  chains  of  the 
might}^  Etruscan  race  whose  buried  cities  lie 
beneath  your  feet,  their  language  and  their 
history  lost  in  the  everlasting  gloom. 

This  was  once  Etruria,  in  all  the  grace  and 
greatness  of  her  royalties ;  then  through  long 
ages  the  land  was  silent,  and  only  heard  the 
kite  shriek  or  the  mountain  hare  scream  ; 
then  fortified  places  rose  agam,  one  by  one,  on 
the  green  slopes,  and  Florence  set  to  work  and 
built  between  her  and  the  sea — between  her 
and  the  coast,  and  all  her  many  enemies  and 
debtors — the  walled  village  of  the  Lastra  Signa  : 
making  it  noble  of  its  kind,  as  she  made  every- 
thing that  she  touched  in  the  old  time ;  giving  it 
a  girdle  of  the  massive  grey  mountain  stone,  and 


104  SIGNA. 


gateways  with  carven  shields  and  frescoes ;  and 
houses  within,  braced  with  iron,  and  ennobled  by 
bold  archways  and  poetised  by  many  a  shrine  and 
sjanbol.  *  ' 

And  the  Lastra  stood  in  the  green  country 
that  is  called  the  Verdure  even  in  the  dry  city 
rolls,  and  saw  the  spears  glisten  among  the  vines, 
and  the  steel  head-pieces  shine  through  the  olives, 
and  the  banners  flutter  down  from  the  heights, 
and  the  condottieri  wind  away  on  the  white  road, 
and  the  long  lines  of  the  pilgrims  trail  through 
the  sunshine,  and  the  scarlet  pomp  of  the  cardinals 
burn  on  the  highwa}^,  and  the  great  lords  with 
their  retinues  ride  to  the  sea  or  the  mountains, 
and  the  heralds  and  trumpeters  come  and  go 
on  their  message  of  peace  or  strife ;  and  it- 
self held  the  road,  when  need  arose,  staunchly, 
through  many  a  dark  da}-,  and  many  a  bitter 
night,  for  many  a  tale  of  years,  and  kept  its 
warders  on  its  watch-towers,  looking  westward 
through  the  centuries  of  war.  And  then  the  hour 
of  fate  struck  when  the  black  eagle,  who  has  "two 
beaks  to  more  devour,"  flew  with  his  heavy  wing 
over  the  Arno ;    and  the  Republic  had  no  help  or 


SIGN  A.  105 


hoi)e  but  in  lier  Gideon,  as  she  called  him  : — 
frank  Ferruccio. 

Ferruccio  knew  that  the  Lastra  was  the  iron 
key  to  the  gates  of  Florence.  But  he  had  no 
gifts  of  gods  to  make  him  omniscient,  and  he 
was  rash,  as  brave  men  are  most  apt  to  be. 
With  his  five  hundred  troopers  he  wrought 
miracles  of  valour  and  relief ;  but  in  a  fatal  hour 
he,  scouting  the  country  to  search  the  convoys  of 
food  that  he  conveyed  to  Florence,  left  the  Lastra 
for  Pisa,  and  the  traitor  Bandini  whispered  in 
the  ear  of  Orange,  "  Strike  now — while  he  is 
absent."  And  Orange  sent  his  Spanish  lances, 
and  the  Lastra  beat  them  back.  But  he  sent 
them  again  as  many  in  numbers  against  the 
place  as  was  all  Ferruccio's  army,  and  with  ar- 
tiller}'  to  aid ;  and  they  made  two  breaches  in 
the  walls,  and  entered,  and  sacked  and  pillaged, 
and  ravished  and  slew  ;  the  bold  gates  standing 
erect  as  they  stand  to-da}^ 

Is  not  the  record  painted  in  the  Hall  of  Leo 
the  Tenth  ? 

The  brave  gates  stood  erect ;  but  the  Lastra 
was  an  armed  town  no  more. 


106  SIGNA. 


Its  days  of  battle  were  done. 

The  grass  and  the  green  creepers  grew  on  the 
battlements ;  and  out  of  the  iron  doors  there 
only  passed  the  meek  oxen  and  the  mules  and 
the  sheep. 

The  walls  of  the  Lastra  are  very  old,  and  are 
still  beautiful.  Broken  down  also  in  many  places, 
and  with  many  places  where  are  hillocks  of  grass 
and  green  bushes  instead  of  the  old  mighty  stones, 
or,  worse  still,  mean  houses  and  tiled  roofs.  But 
they  are  still  erect  in  a  great  part  and  very 
picturesque,  with  the  ropemakers  at  work  on  the 
sward  underneath  them,  and  the  white  bullocks 
coming  out  of  their  open  doors.  The  portcullis 
still  hangs  in  the  gatewaj^s  that  face  the  east  and 
the  west,  and  the  deep  machicolations  of  the 
battlements  are  sharp  and  firm  as  a  lion's  teeth. 
There  is  exquisite  colour  in  them,  and  noble  lines 
severe  and  stern  as  any  that  Arnolfo  drew  or 
raised.  "  She  is  so  old — our  Lastra  !  "  say  the 
people,  with  soft  pride,  while  the  women  sit  and 
spin  on  the  stairs  of  the  old  watch- tow^ers,  and  the 
mules  drink,  and  the  waggons  pass,  and  the  sheej) 
are  driven  under  their  pointed  archways. 


SIGN  A.  lo: 


Of  the  Lastra  it  may  be  written,  as  of  the  old 
tower  of  Calais  church  :  —  "It  is  not  as  ruins  are, 
useless  and  piteous,  feebly  or  fondly  garrulous 
of  better  days  ;  but  useful  still,  going  through 
its  daity  work  as  some  old  fisherman  beaten  grey 
by  storm  yet  drawing  his  daily  nets."  Its  years 
of  war  indeed  are  done ;  it  can  repel  no  foe — it 
can  turn  aside  no  invader  ;  the  wall-sorrel  grows 
on  its  parapets,  the  owl  builds  in  its  loopholes, 
the  dust  of  dec2ij  lies  thick  upon  its  broken  stairs  ; 
in  its  fortified  places  old  women  spin  flax  and 
the  spiders  their  webs ;  but  its  decay  is  not 
desolation,  its  silence  is  not  solitude ;  its  sadness 
is  not  despair ;  the  Ave  Maria  echoes  through  it 
morning  and  night;  when  the  warm  sunrise 
smites  the  battlements,  its  people  go  forth  to 
the  labour  of  the  soil ;  when  the  rays  of  the  sun- 
set fiU  the  west,  there  rises  from  its  mountains 
a  million  spears  of  gold,  as  though  the  hosts  of  a 
conquering  army  raised  them  aloft  with  a  shout  of 
triumph ;  it  garners  its  living  people  still  as  sheep 
within  a  fold — "  its  bells  for  prayer  still  roUing 
through  its  rents."  Harvest  and  vintage  and  seed- 
time are  precious  to  it ;  fruits  of  the  earth  are 


108  SIGN  A. 


brought  within  it ;  the  vine  is  green  against  its 
doors,  and  the  corn  is  threshed  in  its  ancient 
armouries  ;  beautiful  even  where  unsightly ;  hoary 
with  age,  yet  linked  with  living  youth  ;  noble 
as  a  bare  sea  cliff  is  noble,  that  has  kept  the 
waves  at  bay  throughout  uncounted  storms,  the 
Lastra  stands  amidst  the  green  billows  of  the 
foliage  of  the  fields  as  a  lighthouse  amongst 
breakers :  its  towers  speaking  of  strength,  its 
fissures  of  sorrow,  its  granaries  of  labour,  its 
belfries  of  hope. 

When  the  great  service  was  over,  and  the 
bishop  and  the  nobles  had  passed  away  in  their 
glory,  and  the  bells  had  ceased  for  a  season  to 
ring,  and  the  white-robed  contadini  had  gone 
up  amongst  their  hills,  and  the  families  of  the 
Lastra  had  gone  within  doors  and  closed  their 
window- shutters  to  the  sun,  the  little  singer,  wdio 
loved  every  stone  of  the  old  place,  hiying  off 
his  little  surplice,  and  by  a  rare  treat  being  free 
of  task  and  punishment,  and  sent  only  to  gather 
salads  from  the  hill  garden  of  his  one  friend, 
made  his  way  quicldy  through  the  village,  and 
out  by  the  western  gate. 


SIGN  A.  109 


Just  a  child  of  Pii:)pa's — with  no  name  or  use 
or  place  or  title  that  anyone  could  see,  or  right  to 
live  at  all,  if  3'ou  pushed  matters  closely. 

That  was  all  he  was — a  child  of  Pipj)a's,  who 
had  died  without  a  coin  upon  her,  or  a  roof  she 
could  call  her  own,  or  anything  at  all  in  this  wide 
world  except  this  little  sunny-headed,  soft-limbed, 
useless  thing,  fresh  as  dew  and  flushed  like  apple- 
hlossoms,  that  she  left  behind  her,  as  the  mag- 
nolia-leaf, dropping  brown,  to  the  brown  earth, 
leaves  a  blossom. 

Himself,  he  did  not  know  even  so  much  as  this, 
which  indeed  was  as  bad  as  nothing  to  know. 
To  himself  he  was  only  a  foundling,  as  he  was  to 
everyone  else;  picked  up  as  any  blind  puppy 
might  have  been,  motherless,  on  the  face  of  the 
flood. 

The  old  white  town  had  stood  him  in  the  stead 
of  father  and  mother,  and  nation  and  friends ;  and 
though  the  Church,  purifying  him  with  baptismal 
water,  had  given  him  a  long  saint's  name,  Signa 
was  his  true  eponymus. 

The  children  had  called  him  Signa,  because  of 
the  name  on  the  little  gilt  ball  that  they  were 


no  SIGNA. 


scratched  on — the  little  gilt  ball  which  Nita  had 
hung  round  his  neck  by  its  string  again. 

''It  looks  well  to  give  it  to  him,"  she  had 
said  to  her  husband.  "And  it  would  fetch  so 
little,  it  is  not  worth  keeping  for  oneself." 

So  his  little  locket  had  been  left  him — the  locket 
that  had  been  bought  that  day  of  the  fair,  and 
filled  with  a  curl  of  sunny-brown  hair,  which 
Pippa  had  cut  off  herself  in  the  dusk  where  the 
vines  met  overhead; — and  he  was  called  after 
the  word  that  was  on  it,  first  by  the  children, 
and  then  by  their  elders,  who  had  said,  "As 
well  that  as  any  name,  why  not?  the  dogs  of 
Jews  are  often  called  after  the  towns  that  bear 
them;  why  not  this  little  cur,  so  near  drowned 
here,  after  the  place  that  sheltered  him  ?  " 

Hence  he  was  Signa,  Hke  the  town ;  and  in  a 
vague  fancy  that  he  never  followed  out,  he  had 
some  dim  idea  that  this  village  of  the  Lastra, 
which  he  loved  so  dearlj^  had  created  him ;  out 
of  her  dust,  or  from  her  wandering  winds,  or  by 
her  bidding  to  the  owls  that  roosted  in  her 
battlements :  how  he  did  not  know,  but  in  some 
way.     And  he  was   thoroughly  content;    loving 


SIGN  A.  Ill 


the  place  with  a  great  love  quite  reasonless,  and 
quite  childlike,  and  yet  unmeasui'able. 

He  was  j^roud  because  he  had  the  name.  When 
they  beat  him,  he  would  not  cry  out,  because  the 
Lastra  had  been  brave  ;  so  the  old  people  who 
told  stories  of  it  to  him  said ;  and  he  would  be 
brave  likewise. 

It  was  like  his  impudence  to  dare  be  brave 
when  honest-born  children  squealed  like  caught 
mice  !  so  Nita  would  say  to  him  a  score  of  times, 
slappmg  his  cheek  when  Toto  had  trodden  on 
her  gown,  or  beating  him  with  the  rods  of  alder 
when  Toto  had  stolen  the  fritters  from  the 
frying-pan. 

"  She  is  a  good  woman,  Nita,"  said  the  neigh- 
bours, shaking  out  the  gleaned  hay  before  their 
house-doors,  or  sittmg  to  plait  together  in  the 
archways  ;  "  and  Lippo  is  an  angel.  To  think  of 
them — seven  children,  and  an  eighth  nigh — and 
keeping,  all  for  charity,  that  Httle  stray  thing 
found  at  the  flood.  Any  one  else  had  sent  it 
packing,  a  poor  child,  as  one  could  tell  by  its 
clothes  that  were  all  rags,  and  no  chance  for  any 
rich  folk  ever  coming  after  it.     And  yet  treating 


112  SIGNA. 


it  always  like  their  own,  share  and  share  alike, 
and  no  preference  shoAvn — ah,  they  were  good 
people.  Old  Baldo,  too,  not  saying  even  a  word, 
though  he  was  a  sharp  man  about  shoe-leather, 
and  no  blame  to  him,  because,  after  all,  who  will 
save  the  skin  of  your  onion  for  you  unless  you 
do  yourself?  " 

As  from  a  baby  it  grew  into  a  little  child,  Bruno 
ever  and  again  saw  to  its  wants. 

"  The  child  must  be  clean,"  he  had  said  ;  and 
he  would  not  have  it  go  in  rags. 

"  The  child  mtist  be  well  kept,"  he  had  said ; 
und  he  would  not  have  its  curls  sheared  close,  as 
Toto's  was. 

Then  as  it  grew  older. 

*'  Let  the  child  learn,"  he  had  said  ;  and  Nita 
humoured  him,  because  she  believed  it  to  be  his 
O'wn  offspring,  and  Lippo,  because  of  that  good 
half  of  everything,  which  kept  his  father-in-law 
in  such  good  humour,  and  left  him  himself  free 
to  idle  in  the  sun,  and  lie  face  downward  on 
the  stone  benches,  and  do  nothing  all  day  long 
except  kill  flies. 

So  Lippo  and  his  wife   were   very   careful  to 


SIGN  A.  113 


have  the  chikl's  curls  shine,  instead  of  shearing 
them  close  as  they  did  their  own  babies',  and 
when  he  ran  into  the  street  would  give  him  a  big 
lump  of  crust  to  eat  as  people  passed,  and  on 
saint  days  take  him  with  them  to  the  church  in 
a  little  frock  snow-white,  Hke  one  of  the  straight- 
robed,  long-haired  child-figures  in  any  panel  or 
predella  of  Delia  Francesca  or  the  Memmi. 
He  was  so  pretty  that  people  gave  him  cakes  and 
fruits  and  money,  just  for  the  beauty  of  his 
wistful  eyes,  and  to  see  his  Httle  mouth,  like  a 
carnation  bud,  open  to  sing  his  Aves. 

And  of  course  there  was  reason  that  the  child, 
once  home,  should  give  up  the  cakes  and  fruits  to 
the  other  children  who  were  like  foster-brothers 
and  sisters  to  him,  and  as  for  the  money,  of 
course  he  could  not  keep  it,  being  such  a  little 
thing  ;  they  took  it  from  him  to  take  care  of  it — 
they  were  good,  honest  people. 

As  for  the  little  lad,  true  he  was  hungry  often, 
and  beaten  often,  when  no  one  was  looking,  and 
worked  like  a  footsore  mule  at  all  times. 

But  then  nobody  noticed  that,  because  he  was 
always  taken  to  mass,  and  had  the  little  white 


114  ^  SIGNA. 


shirt  on  just  like  Toto,  and  no  difference  made, 
and  all  his  curls  hrushed  out.  The  curate's 
sister  said  there  never  was  so  sweet  a  soul 
as  Lippo's,  for  of  course  it  all  was  Lippo's 
doing;  Nita  was  an  honest  woman,  and  true- 
hearted  ;  but  Lippo  it  was  that  was  the  saint  in 
the  house.  Another  man  would  have  turned  the 
brat  out  by  the  ears  first  sight:  not  he — he 
cut  the  stray  child's  bread  as  big  as  any  of  his 
boys',  and  paid  for  him,  too,  to  learn  his  letters. 

So  the  curate's  sister  said,  the  neighbours 
said  after  her;  and  Lippo,  being  a  meek  man, 
smiled  gently,  and  cast  his  eyes  down  under- 
neath the  praise,  and  said  in  answer,  that  no 
one  could  have  turned  a  pretty  baby  like  that 
out  after  once  housing  it,  and  added,  with  a 
kindly  grace  that  moved  the  women  to  tears, 
that  he  hoped  the  child  might  be  like  those  gold- 
winged  porcellini  that,  flying  in  your  window 
with  the  sunbeams,  bring  good  will  and  peace, 
the  people  say. 

This  day,  after  the  ceremony,  the  little  fellow 
ran  over  the  bridge  and  up  the  hill-road,  where 
his  mother,   of  whom  he  knew  nothing,  had  met 


SIGNA.  Ui 


lier  death.     He   was  stiff  with  a  severe  beating 
that  had  been  given  him. 

The  night  before  there  had  been  a  basket  of 
red  clierries  missing,  and  Toto  had  been  found 
crunching  them  in  the  loft,  and  Toto  had  said  that 
lie  had  been  given  them  by  Signa,  who  first  had 
eaten  half;  and  old  Baldo,  who  had  got  them 
as  a  present  for  the  priest,  had  been  beside  him- 
self with  rage,  and  Nita  had  beaten  Signa,  as  her 
habit  and  daily  comfort  was,  because  he  never 
would  cry  out,  which  made  him  the  more  pro- 
voking, and  also  was  always  innocent,  than 
which  there  is  nothing  more  irritating  an3^where. 

He  was  very  stiff,  and  felt  it  now  that  the 
music  was  all  done  ;  but  almost  forgot  it  again 
in  the  pleasure  of  the  hill-side  and  the  holyday. 

The  country  was  full  of  joys  to  the  child  that 
he  never  reasoned  about,  but  which  filled  bun 
with  delight.  The  great  bold  curves  of  the  oak 
bough  overhead ;  the  amethyst  and  amber  of  the 
trefoil  blossoms ;  the  voices  of  the  wood  doves  ; 
the  jovial  croakings  of  the  frogs  ;  the  flash  of 
butterflies  ;  the  glories  of  the  oleanders  here, 
white  as  snow,  and  there  rosily  radiant  as  flame  ; 

I  2 


116  SIGN  J. 


the  poppies  that  had  cast  their  petals,  and  had 
round  grey  heads  Uke  powdered  wigs ;  the 
spiders,  red  and  black,  like  bits  of  old  Egyptian 
pottery;  the  demure  and  dusky  cavaletti,  that 
looked  like  ghosts  of  nuns,  out  by  an  error  in  the 
daylight ;  the  pretty  lizards  that  were  so  happy 
asking  nothing  of  the  world  except  a  sunbeam 
and  a  stone  to  sleep  under ;  the  nightingales  that 
were  so  tame,  and  sang  at  broad  noontide  to 
laugh  at  poets  ;  the  orchids,  gold  and  ruby,  that 
mimicked  bees  and  flies  to  make  fun  of  them, 
because  there  is  so  much  humour  in  nature  with 
all  her  sweet  seriousness  of  beautj^ ;  the  flies  that 
shone  like  jewels  ;  the  hedges  of  china  roses  that 
ran  between  the  corn  ;  the  gaunt  stern  spikes  of 
the  artichokes  ;  the  green  Madonna's  herb  ;  the 
mountains  that  were  sometimes  quite  lost  in  the 
white  mists,  and  then  of  a  sudden  lifted  them.- 
selves  in  all  their  glory,  with  black  shadows 
where  the  woods  were,  and  hazy  breadths 
of  colour  where  the  bare  marble  shone  beneath 
the  sun ;  —  all  these  things,  so  various,  great 
and  small,  wonderful  and  obscure,  under  his 
feet,    or   on    the   far   horizon,    were   sources   of 


i^IGNA.  ir 


delight  to  the  child,  who  as  he  went  lost  sight  of 
nothing  from  the  little  gemmed  insect  in  the 
dust  he  trod  to  the  last  glow  left  on  the  faintest, 
farthest  peak  of  the  great  hills  that  rose  hetween 
him  and  the  sea. 

Nobody  had  ever  told  him  anything. 

None  had  led  him  by  the  hand  and  bade  him 
look. 

Some  instinct  moved  him  to  see  and  hear 
where  others  were  blind  and  deaf.     That  was  all. 

To  the  ploughman  of  Ayr  the  daisy  was  a 
tender  grace  of  God,  and  the  mouse  a  fellow 
traveller  in  the  ways  of  life. 

To  Signa,  who  was  only  a  baby  still,  and  was 
beaten  most  days  of  the  week,  and  ran  barefoot 
in  the  dust,  the  summer  and  the  world  were 
beautiful  without  his  knowing  why,  and  com- 
forted him.  For  in  all  this  sea  of  sunshine — as 
in  the  music — he  forgot  his  pain. 

He  ran  like  a  little  goat  up  the  road  with  the 
green  river  winding  below,  and  the  hills  changing 
at  each  step  with  those  inconstancies  of  light 
and  shade,  and  aspect,  and  colour  in  which  all 
hills   delight.      It   was   an   hour   before,  always 


118  SIGNA. 


climbing  sturdil}^  he  reached  an  old  stone  gate- 
way set  in  breadths  of  grain  just  golden  for  the 
sickle,  with  a  black  crucifix  against  it,  and  above 
it  a  little  framed  picture  of  the  Annunciation. 

He  stooped  his  knee,  and  crossed  himself; 
then  ran  between  the  old  stone  posts,  which  had 
no  gate  in  them,  and  sent  his  voice  up  the 
hill-side  before  his  feet.  "  Bruno  !  Bruno  ! 
Bruno !  " 

"  Here ! "  sang  the  man's  voice  in  answer 
from  above,  amongst  the  corn. 

Signa  climbed  the  steep  green  patches  that  ran 
between  the  wheat  and  under  the  vines  up  the 
face  of  the  hill,  and  threw  his  arms  round 
Bruno's  knees. 

^'  A  whole  day  to  spend  !  "  he  cried,  breathless 
with  running.  "  And  are  you  working  ?  Why 
it  is  Corpus  Domini.  The}^  do  not  work  any- 
where !  " 

Bruno  put  down  the  handful  of  corn  that  he 
had  just  cut  and  wound  together. 

"  No ;  one  should  not  work,"  he  said,  with 
some  shame  for  his  own  industry.  "  But  those 
clouds  look  angry;  they  may  mean  rain  at  sunset; 


8IGNA.  119 


and  to  spoil  such  grain  as  this — and  the  Padre 
will  not  come  this  way ;  he  never  gets  so  far 
down  on  feasts.     And  you  are  well,  Signa  ?  " 

"  Oh  quite  well." 

"  But  you  must  be  hungry? — running  so  ?  " 

"No  ;  I  can  wait." 

"  You  have  had  youi*  bread  then  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

It  was  not  true.  But  then  Signa  had  found 
out  two  things  :  one,  that  when  he  told  Bruno 
that  he  was  ill-treated  or  ill-fed  at  home,  there 
were  quarrels  and  troubles  between  Bruno  and 
his  brother  ;  and  the  other,  that  if  he  let  Bruno 
see  that  he  was  at  all  unhappy,  Bruno  seemed  to 
be  consumed  with  self-reproach.  So  that  the  child 
whose  single  love,  except  that  for  the  old  town 
itself,  was  Bruno,  had  early  learned  to  hold  his 
tongue  and  bear  his  sorrows  silently  as  best  he 
might,  and  tell  an  innocent  little  lie  even  now 
and  then  to  spare  pain  to  his  friend. 

Bruno  always  took  his  part.  It  was  Bruno 
who  got  him  any  little  joy  he  ever  knew,  and 
Bruno  who  would  not  let  them  shave  his  pretty 
clustering  curls  to  make  a  bare  round  pumpkin 


120  SIGNA. 


of  his  head  like  Toto's  ;  and  one  day  when  he 
had  been  onl}^  seven  years  old,  and  Bruno  by 
chance  had  found  him  crying,  and  learned  that 
it  Avas  with  the  smart  of  Nita's  thrashing,  Bruno 
and  Lippo  had  had  fierce  words  and  blows ;  and 
late  that  night  the  eldest  boy  of  Lippo's  had 
come  and  shaken  him  in  his  bed  of  hay,  and 
hissed  savagely  in  his  ear  : 

"You  little  fool,  if  you  go  telling  my  uncle 
Bruno  we  ill-treat  you,  he  will  strike  at  my 
father  and  kill  him  perhaps,  who  knows,  he  is 
so  violent,  and  then  a  nice  day's  work  you  will 
have  made  for  every  one  ; — you  little  beast.  My 
father  dead,  and  Bruno  at  the  galleys,  all 
through  you  who  are  not  worth  the  rind  of  a 
rotten  melon,  little  cur  !  " 

And  Signa,  trembling  in  his  bed,  had  vaguely 
understood  the  mischief  he  might  do,  though 
why  they  quarrelled  for  him,  and  why  Lippo 
gave  him  a  home,  and  j^et  ill-treated  him,  or 
why  Bruno  should  have  any  care  to  take  his  part, 
he  could  not  tell ;  but  he  comprehended  that 
all  he  had  to  do  was  to  accept  ill-usage  dumbly, 
like  the  dogs,  and  bring  none  into  any  trouble 


SIGNA.  121 


b}^  complaining.  And  so  he  grew  up— witli 
silence  for  a  habit  :  for  he  loved  Bruno. 

Bruno,  who  was  fierce  and  wayward  and  hated 
and  feared  by  every  one  on  the  countr}^  side,  but 
who  to  him  was  gentle  as  a  woman,  and  was 
always  kind.  Bruno,  who  had  a  most  terrible 
knack  of  flashing  out  his  knife  in  anger,  and  who 
had  quarrelled  with  all  the  women  he  had  wooed, 
and  who  had  a  rough  heartless  way  of  speech 
that  made  people  wonder  he  could  be  of  the 
same  blood  and  bone  as  mild  and  pleasant  Lippo, 
but  who  to  him  was  never  without  a  grave  soft 
smile  that  took  all  the  darkness  from  this  face 
it  shone  on,  and  who  for  him  had  many  tender 
thoughts  and  acts  that  were  like  the  blue  radish 
flower  on  its  rough,  grey,  leafless  stalk. 

The  child  never  wondered  why  Bruno  cared 
for  him.  Children  take  love  as  they  take  sun- 
shine and  their  daily  bread.  If  it  rain  and  they 
starve,  then  the}^  wonder,  because  children  come 
into  the  world  with  an  innocent  undoubting  con- 
viction that  they  will  be  happy  in  it,  which  is 
one  of  the  oddest  and  the  saddest  things  one 
sees ;  for,  being  begotten  by  men  and  borne  by 


122  SIGNA, 


women,  liow  can   any  sucli   strange    error   ever 
be  alive  in  them  ? 

Brmio  put  by  his  reaping-hook,  and  let  the 
big  bearded  turkish  wheat  stand  over  for  another 
day.  He  had  risked  his  own  soul  to  make  sure 
of  the  wheat — for  to  Bruno  it  was  a  soul's  peril 
to  use  a  sickle  on  a  holy  day ; — but  he  let  go  the 
corn  rather  than  spoil  the  little  fellow's  pleasure. 

"  You  can  eat  something  again — come,"  he 
said,  stretching  his  hand  out  to  the  boy's. 

Pippa's  child  was  like  her,  only  with  something 
spiritual  and  far-reaching  in  his  great  dark  eyes 
that  hers  had  never  had,  and  a  gleam  of  gold  in 
the  soft  thickness  of  his  hair  that  did  not  come 
from  her.  He  was  more  delicate,  more  slender, 
more  like  a  little  supple  reed  than  Pippa  ever  had 
been,  and  he  had  a  more  uncommon  look  about 
him ;  but  he  was  like  her — like  enough  to  make 
Bruno  still  shudder  now  and  then  thinking  of 
the  dead  woman  left  all  alone  to  the  rain  and 
to  the  river. 

"  Come  and  eat,"  he  said,  and  took  the  child 
indoors. 

His   house   had   a   great   arched    door   where 


SIGNA.  123 


Pippa  had  stood  plaiting  many  a  night.  It  had 
a  brick  floor  and  a  ceiling  of  old  timbers,  and 
some  old  dusky  chests  and  presses  that  v/ould 
liave  fetched  a  fortmie  in  city  cmiosity  shox^s, 
and  a  strong  musty  smell  of  drying  herbs  and  of 
X^iles  of  peas  and  beans  for  winter  uses,  and 
trusses  of  straw  cleaned  and  cut  for  the  plaiters  ; 
and  hens  were  sitting  on  their  eggs  inside  an  old 
gilded  marriage  coffer  six  hundred  years  old,  if 
one,  whose  lid,  that  had  dropped  oif  the  hinges, 
was  illuminated  with  the  nuptials  of  Galileo  in 
the  style  of  the  early  school  of  Cortona. 

Through  a  square  unglazed  window  there  was 
seen  the  head  of  a  brindled  cow  munching  grass 
in  her  shed  on  the  other  side,  and  through  a 
wide  opening  opposite  that  had  no  door,  the 
noon  sun  shining  showed  the  great  open  building 
that  was  granary  and  cart-shed,  and  stable  and 
hothouse  all  in  one,  and  where  the  oil-presses 
stood,  and  the  vats  for  the  wine,  and  the  empt}' 
casks. 

Against  one  of  the  walls  was  a  crucifix  with  a 
little  basin  for  holy  water,  for  Bruno  was  a  man 
who  believed  in  the  saints  without  question ;  and 


124  SIQNA. 


above  the  arched  entrance  there  grew  a  great 
mulberry-tree  that  was  never  stripped,  because 
he  had  no  silkworms,  and  magnolias  and  cistus- 
bushes,  and  huge  poppies  that  loved  to  glow  in 
the  stones,  and  big  dragon-heads  flaming  like 
rubies,  and  arabian  jessamine  of  divinest  odour, 
and  big  myrtles,  all  flourishing  luxuriant  alike 
together,  because  in  this  country  flowers  have 
nine  lives  like  cats,  and  will  live  anywhere,  just 
because  no  one  w^ants  them  or  ever  thinks  of 
gathering  them  unless  there  be  a  corpse  to  be 
dressed. 

**  Eat,"  said  Bruno;  and  he  got  the  little  lad 
out  some  brown  bread  and  a  jug  of  milk,  and  a 
cabbage-leaf  of  currants,  which  he  had  gathered 
early  that  morning  before  the  mass-bells  rang, 
being  sure  Signa  would  come  before  the  day 
should  be  over. 

Signa  ate  and  drank  with  the  eager  goodwill 
of  a  child  who  never  got  enough,  except  by  some 
rare  chance  on  a  feast-day  like  this  ;  but  the 
larger  part  of  the  currants  he  left  on  the  leaf, 
taking  only  one  or  two  bunches. 

Bruno  watched  him. 


SIGN  A.  125 


"  Are  3^ou  going  to  give  them  away  ?  " 

"  I  will  give  them  to  Gemma — I  may  ?  " 

"  Do  as  you  like  with  yom-  own.  But  if  you 
must  give  them  to  any  one,  give  them  to  Palma." 

Signa  coloured  on  both  his  little  pale  cheeks. 

"  I  will  give  them  to  the  two,"  he  said, 
conscious  of  an  unjust  intention  nipped  in  the 
bud. 

"  Palma  is  a  better  child  than  Gemma,"  said 
Bruno,  sharpening  a  vine-stake  with  his  clasp- 
knife. 

Signa  hung  his  head. 

*'  But  I  like  Gemma  best." 

''  When  that  is  said,  there  is  no  more  to  be 
said,"  answered  Bruno,  who  had  learned  enough 
of  human  nature  on  the  hills  and  in  the  Lastra 
to  know  that  liking  does  not  go  by  reason  nor 
follow  after  merit. 

"  Gemma  is  so  pretty,"  said  the  little  fellow, 
who  loved  anything  that  had  beauty  in  it ;  and 
he  ran  and  got  his  mandoline  out  of  the  corner 
where  Bruno  let  him  keep  it,  and  began  to  turn 
its  keys  and  run  his  fingers  over  its  strings  and 
call  the  cadence   out  of  it  with  as  light  a  heart 


126  SIGNA. 


as  if  his  back  had  never  been  black  and  blue 
with  Nita's  thrashing. 

"  If  Gemma  broke  your  chitarra,  would  you 
like  her  the  better  then  ?  "  asked  Bruno. 

*^  I  would  hate  her,"  said  Signa  under  his 
breath ;  for  he  had  two  idols — his  lute  and  the 
Lastra. 

"  I  wish  she  would  break  it,  then,"  said  Bruno, 
who  was  jealous  of  this  little  child  for  whom 
Signa  was  saving  his  currants. 

But  Signa  did  not  hear.  He  was  sitting  out 
on  the  threshold  on  an  empty  red  lemon-pot 
turned  upside  down,  with  the  slope  of  the  autumn 
corn  and  the  green  hillside  beneath  him  in  the 
sun,  and  beyond  them,  far  down  below  in  the 
great  valley,  and  golden  in  the  light  were  first 
the  walls  of  the  Lastra  set  in  the  sea  of  vines, 
and  then  the  towers  and  domes  of  Florence  far 
away  ;  and  farther  yet,  where  the  east  was  warm 
with  morning  light,  the  mountains  of  Umbria, 
with  the  little  towns  on  their  crest,  from  which 
you  see  two  seas. 

With  all  that  vast  radiant  world  beneath  him 
at  his  feet,  Signa  tuned  his  mandoline  and  sang 


SIGNA.  12- 


to  himself  untired  on  the  still  hillside.  The  cow 
leaned  her  mouth  over  the  window-sill,  and  lis- 
tened ;  cows  seem  so  stupid,  chewing  grass  and 
whisking  flies  away,  but  in  their  eyes  there  is  the 
soul  of  lo  ;  the  nightingales  held  their  breaths 
to  listen,  and  then  joined  in  till  all  the  branches 
that  they  lived  in  seemed  alive  with  sound ;  the 
great  white  watch-dog  from  the  marshes  came  and 
laid  down  quite  quiet,  blinking  solemnly  with 
attentive  e^'es ;  but  the  cicali  never  stopped 
sawing  like  carpenters  in  the  tree-tops,  nor  the 
gossipping  hens  from  clacking  in  the  cabbage - 
beds,  because  cicali  and  chickens  think  the  world 
was  made  for  them,  and  believe  that  the  sun 
would  fall  if  they  ceased  from  fussing  and  fuming : 
— they  are  so  very  human. 

Bruno  laid  himself  down  face  forward  on  a 
stone  bench,  as  contadini  love  to  do  when  they 
have  any  leisure,  and  listened  too,  his  head 
upon  his  arms. 

The  water  dropped  from  the  well-spout ;  a 
lemon  fell  with  a  little  splash  on  the  grass  ;  the 
big  black  restless  bees  buzzed  here  and  there  ; 
blue  butterflies  danced  above  the  grain  as  if  the 


128  SIGNA. 


cornflowers  had  risen  winged;  the  swallows 
wheeled  round  the  low  red-tiled  roof;  the  old 
wooden  plough  laj^  in  the  shade  under  the  fig-trees ; 
the  oxen  ate  clover  and  the  leaves  of  cane  in 
fragrant  darkness  in  their  shed  ;  the  west  wind 
came  from  the  pines  above  with  the  smell  of  the 
sea  and  the  thyme  and  the  rosemar3\ 

Signa  played  and  sang,  making  up  his  song 
as  he  went  along,  in  rhymes  strung  like  chains 
of  daisies,  all  out  of  his  own  head,  and  born  in 
a  moment  out  of  nothing,  and,  beginning  with 
the  name  of  a  flower,  and  winding  in  with 
them  the  sun  and  the  shadow,  the  beasts  and 
the  birds,  the  restless  bees  and  the  ploughshare 
at  rest,  and  the  full  wheat-ears  and  the  empty 
well-bucket,  and  anything  and  everything  little 
and  large,  and  foolish  and  wise,  that  was  there 
about  him  in  the  midsummer  light. 

Anywhere  else  it  might  have  been  strange 
for  a  little  peasant  to  make  melody  so ;  but 
here  the  children  lisp  in  numbers,  and  up  and 
down  on  the  hills,  and  in  the  road  when  the 
mule-bells  ring,  and  on  the  high  mountains  with 
the  browsing  goats,  the  verse  and  song  of  the 


SIGN  A.  129 


people  fill  the  air  all  da}^  long — this  people  who 
for  the  world  have  no  poet. 

Bruno,  lying  face  downward  and  listening, 
half  asleep,  to  the  rippling  music,  thought  it 
jn-etty,  but  nothing  rare  or  of  wonder;  the 
little  lad  played  better  than  most  of  his  age, 
and  had  a  gift  for  stringing  his  rhymes,  that 
was  all. 

For  himself,  he  was  almost  jealous  of  the  lute 
as  he  was  of  the  child  Gemma.  For  Bruno 
loved  the  boy  with  a  covetous  love  and  a  strong 
love,  and  felt  as  if  in  some  way  or  other  Signa 
escaped  him. 

The  boy  was  loving,  obedient,  grateful,  full 
of  caressing  and  tractable  wsljs  ;  there  was  no 
fault  to  find  with  him;  but  Bruno  at  times 
felt  that  he  held  him  no  more  surely  than 
one  holds  a  bird  because  it  alights  at  one's 
feet. 

It  was  a  vague  feeling  with  him.  Bruno,  being 
an  unlearned  man,  did  not  reason  about  his 
impressions  nor  seek  to  know  whether  they  were 
even  wise  ones.  But  it  w^as  a  strong  feel- 
ing with   him,   and   something   in  the   far-away 


130  SIGN  A. 


look  of  the  little  lad's  eyes  as  he  sang,  strength- 
ened it. 

Pippa  had  never  had  that  look ;  no  one  had  it 
except  the  little  Christs  or  St.  Johns  sometimes 
in  the  old  frescoes  in  the  churches  that  Bruno 
would  enter  once  a  year  or  so,  when  he  went  to 
Prato  or  Carmignano  or  Pistoia  to  buy  grain  or 
to  sell  it. 

"  That  is  God  looking  out  of  the  eyes,"  an 
old  sacristan  here  said  once  to  him,  before  one  of 
those  altar  pictures,  where  the  wonderful  faces 
were  still  radiant  amidst  the  fading  colours  of 
the  age-clad  frescoes. 

But  why  should  God  look  out  of  the  eyes  of 
Pippa' s  child  ? 

Why  was  God  in  him  more  than  in  any 
others  ? 

Those  children  in  the  frescoes  were  most  fitting 
in  their  place,  no  doubt,  amongst  the  incense,  and 
the  lilies,  and  the  crosses,  and  above  the  sacred 
Host.  But  to  sit  at  your  bench,  and  eat  beans, 
and  be  sent  to  fetch  in  sheep  from  the  hills ; — 
Bruno  felt  that  a  more  workaday  soul  was  better 
for  this,  he  would  have  been  more  at  ease  if  Signa 


SIGNA.  131 


liad  been  just  a  noisy,  idle,  troublesome,  merry 
morsel,  playing  more  like  other  boys,  and  happy 
over  a  baked  goose  on  a  feast-day.  He  would 
have  known  better  how  to  deal  with  him. 

And  yet  not  for  worlds  would  he  have  changed 
him. 


K   2 


HH^^ 

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CHAPTER  YIII. 


If  Pippa  had  not  been  quite  dead  that  night 
when  they  had  found  her  in  the  fields  ?  If  there 
had  been  any  spark  of  Hfe  flickering  in  her  that  with 
warmth  and  care  and  a  surgeon's  skill  might  have 
been  fanned  back  again  into  a  steady  flame  ?  It 
was  not  likely  ;  but  it  was  possible.  And  if  it 
had  been  so,  then  what  were  he  and  Lij)po  ? 

The  sickly  thought  of  it  came  upon  him  many 
a  time  and  made  him  shiver  and  turn  cold.  When 
he  had  left  the  woman  lying  in  the  field  he  had 
been  quite  sure  that  all  life  was  gone  out  of  her. 
But  now  he  was  not  so  sure.  Cold  and  the  fall 
might  have  made  her  senseless.  Who  could  tell  ? 
— if  thej^  ha'd  done  their  duty  by  her — Pippa 
might  have  been  living  now. 


SIGNA.  133 


It  was  not  probable.  He  knew  the  touch  of  a 
dead  thing,  and  she  had  felt  to  him  dead  as  any 
slaughtered  sheep  could  be.  But  sometimes,  in 
the  long  lonely  nights  of  autumn,  when  he  sat 
watching  his  grapes,  with  the  gun  against  his 
knee,  lest  thieves  should  strip  the  vines,  Bruno 
would  think  of  it,  and  say  to  himself — "If  she 
were  not  really  dead,  what  was  I  ?  " 

He  told  all  to  the  good  priest  in  the  little 
brown  church  beneath  the  vines  on  his  hill ;  told 
it  all  under  the  seal  of  confession,  and  the  priest 
absolved  him  by  reason  of  his  true  penitence  and 
anxious  sorrow.  But  Bruno  could  not  absolve 
himself. 

He  had  left  her  there  for  the  flood  to  take 
her  ; — and  after  all  she  might  have  been  brought 
back  to  life,  had  he  lifted  her  up  on  his  shoul- 
ders and  borne  her  down  into  shelter  and 
warmth,  instead  of  deserting  her  there  like  a 
coward. 

The  water  had  done  it ;  had  washed  her  away 
out  of  sight  and  killed  her  if  she  were  not  already 
dead  when  it  rose,  and  swept  her  out  to  the 
secrecy  of  the  deep  seas.    But  he  told  himself,  at 


134  SIGNA. 


times,  that  it  was  he  who  was  the  murderer — not 
the  water. 

When  he  looked  at  the  river  shining  away 
between  the  green  hills  and  the  grey  olives,  he 
felt  as  if  it  knew  his  guilt,  as  if  it  were  a  fellow 
sinner  with  him,  only  the  more  innocent  of  the 
two.  Of  course  the  pain  and  the  remorse  of  it 
were  not  always  on  him.  He  led  an  active  life  ; 
he  was  always  working  at  something  or  another, 
from  daybreak  till  night ;  the  free  fresh  air  blew 
always  about  him,  and  blew  morbid  fancies  from 
his  brain.  But  at  times,  when  all  was  quiet, 
in  the  hush  of  midnight,  or  when  he  rested  from 
his  labours  at  sunset,  and  all  the  world  was  gold 
and  rose,  then  he  thought  of  Pippa  ;  then  he  felt 
the  cold,  pulseless  breast  underneath  his  hand  ; 
then  he  said  to  himself — ''If  she  were  not  quite 
dead  ?  "  The  torment  of  the  thought  worked  in 
him  and  weighed  on  him,  and  made  his  heart 
yearn  to  the  little  lad,  who,  but  for  his  cowardice, 
might  not  now  have  been  motherless  and 
alone . 

Bruno  sat  on  at  his  house  door  that  night, 
watching  the  little  lad  run  along  the  hill.     He 


SIGNA.  135 


could  see  all  the  way  down  the  slope,  and  though 
the  trees  and  the  vines  at  times  hid  Signa  from 
sight,  and  at  times  he  was  lost  in  the  wheat, 
which  was  taller  than  he,  yet  at  intervals,  the 
small  flying  figm^e  with  the  sunset  about  its 
hair,  could  be  seen  going  down,  down,  down 
along  the  great  slope,  and  Brmio  watched  it  with 
a  troubled  fondness  in  his  eyes. 

He  was  doing  the  best  for  the  child  that  he 
knew.  He  had  him  taught  to  read  and  write ; 
he  had  him  sing  for  the  priests  ;  he  was  learning 
the  ways  of  the  fields,  and  the  needs  of  beasts, 
tending  his  sheep  and  Lippo's  by  turns,  as  a  little 
contadino  had  to  do  in  the  sim]3le  life  of  the  open 
air.  He  could  not  tell  what  more  to  do  for  him  ; 
he  a  peasant  himself  and  the  son  of  many  genera- 
tions of  peasants,  who  had  worked  here  one  after 
another  on  the  great  green  hill  above  the  Lastra 
valley. 

He  did  not  know  what  else  to  do. 

That  was  the  way  he  had  been  brought  up, 
except  that  he  had  never  been  taught  a  letter; 
running  with  bare  legs  over  the  thyme  on  the  hills, 
and  watching  the  sheep  on'the  high  places  amongst 


136  SIGNA. 


the  gorze,  and  pattering  through  the  dh^t  after  the 
donkey,  when  there  were  green  things  to  go  into 
market,  or  loads  of  fir  cones  to  he  carried,  or 
sacks  of  corn  to  be  borne  to  the  grmding  press. 
If  there  was  a  better  way  to  bring  up  a  child  he 
did  not  know  it.  And  yet  he  was  not  altogether 
sure  that  Pippa,  if  she  saw,  from  heaven,  were 
satisfied. 

The  child  was  thinner  than  he  liked,  and  his 
shirt  was  all  holes,  and  never  a  little  beggar  was 
poorer  clad  than  was  Signa  winter  and  summer  ; 
and  Bruno  knew  that  he  gave  into  Lippo's 
pocket  more  than  enough  to  keep  a  child  well, 
for  liis  land  was  rich,  and  he  laboured  hard, 
and  he  bore  with  Lippo's  coming  and  going,  and 
prying  and  calculating  always  to  make  sure  how 
much  the  grain  yielded,  and  to  count  the  figs  and 
potatoes,  and  to  watch  the  winepress,  and  to  see 
how  the  peas  yielded,  and  to  satisfy  himself 
that  he  always  got  the  full  amount  they  had 
agreed  for ;  he  bore  with  all  that  from  Lippo, 
though  it  was  enough  to  exasperate  a  quieter 
man,  and  many  a  time  he  could  have  kicked  his 
brother  out  of  his  fields  for  all  that  meddling  and 


SIGNA.  137 


measuiing ;  and  being  an  impatient  temper  and 
resentful,  chafed  like  a  tethered  mastiff,  to  have 
Nita  and  her  brood  clamouring  for  roots  and 
salads  and  eggs  and  buckwheat,  as  if  he  were  a 
slave  for  them. 

''  The  half  of  all  I  get,"  he  had  said  in  the 
rash  haste  of  his  repentance  and  remorse  ;  and 
Lippo  pinned  him  to  his  word. 

He  would  have  given  the  world  that  instead  of 
that  mad  bargain  made  without  thought,  he  had 
taken  the  child  to  himself  wholly  and  told  the 
truth  in  the  Lastra,  and  given  the  poor  dead  body 
burial,  and  been  free  to  do  with  Pippa's  boy  what- 
ever he  chose.  But  Bruno,  like  many  others, 
had  fallen  by  fear  and  haste  into  a  false  way;  and 
stumbled  on  in  it  galled  and  entangled. 

Bruno  was  now  over  forty  years  old,  and  his 
country  folk  spoke  more  ill  of  liim  rather  than 
less.  When  he  went  down  into  the  Lastra  to  sit 
and  take  a  sup  of  wine,  and  play  a  game  at 
dominoes  as  other  men  did,  none  were  glad  to  see 
him.  The  women  owed  him  a  grudge  because  he 
maiTied  none  of  them,  and  the  men  thought  him 
fierce  and  quarrelsome,  when  he  was  not  taciturn. 


138  SIGNA. 


and   found   that   he   spoiled   mh^th  rather   than 
increased  it  by  his  presence. 

He  was  a  handsome  man  still,  and  lithe,  and 
burnt  brown  as  a  nut  by  the  sun.  He  wore  a 
loose  shirt,  open  at  the  throat,  and  in  winter  had 
a  long  brown  cloak  tossed  across  from  one 
shoulder  to  the  other.  He  had  bare  feet,  and 
the  walk  of  a  mountaineer  or  an  athlete.  March- 
ing beside  his  bullocks,  with  a  cart-load  of  hay, 
or  going  down  to  the  river  for  fish,  with  his 
great  net  outspread  on  its  cii'cular  frame,  he  was 
a  noble,  serious,  majestic  figure,  and  had  a 
certain  half  wild,  half  lordly  air  about  him  that  is 
not  uncommon  to  the  Tuscan  peasant  when  he 
lives  far  enough  from  the  cities  not  to  be  con- 
taminated by  them. 

The  nine  years  that  had  run  by  since  the  night 
of  the  flood,  had  darkened  Bruno's  name  in  the 
Lastra  country. 

Before  that  night  he  had  been,  whatever  other 
faults  or  vices  he  had  had,  openhanded  to  a  degree 
most  rare  amongst  his  people.  A  man  that  he  had 
struck  to  the  ground  one  day,  he  would  open  his 
leathern  bag  of  coppers  to  the  next.     Whatever 


SIGN  A.  139 


other  his  crimes,  he  had  always  been  generous,  to 
utter  improvidence,  which  is  so  strange  a  thing 
in  his  nation,  that  he  was  often  nicknamed  a 
madman  for  it.  But  no  one  quarrels  with  a  mad- 
ness that  they  profit  by,  and  Bruno's  generosity 
had  got  him  forgiven  many  a  misdeed  and  many 
a  license,  by  men  and  women. 

Since  the  flood,  little  by  little,  parsimony 
growing  on  him  with  each  year,  he  had  become 
careful  of  spending,  quick  to  take  his  rights, 
and  slow  to  fling  down  money  for  men's  sport 
or  women's  kisses.  The  country  said  that 
Bruno  was  altogether  given  over  to  the  devil, 
he  was  no  longer  good  to  get  gain  out  of  even ; 
he  had  turned  niggard,  and  there  was  no  excuse 
for  him,  they  averred  ;  a  better  padrone  no  man 
worked  under  than  he,  and  his  fattore  was  old 
and  easy ;  and  the  land  that  in  the  old  time  had 
served  to  maintain  his  father  and  mother  with  a 
tribe  of  children  to  eat  them  out  of  house  and 
home,  now  had  only  himself  upon  it,  good  land 
and  rich,  and  sheltered  though  on  the  mountains, 
whilst,  as  everyone  knows,  the  higher  the  land 
lies  the  better  is  the  vintage.     Men  gossij^ping 


140  SIGNA. 


in  the  evenings  under  the  old  gateways  of  the 
Lastra,  watching  Bruno  with  his  empty  bullock- 
cart  go  back  between  the  hedges  to  the  bridge, 
w^ould  shake  their  heads  : — 

"  A  bad  fellow  ! "  said  Momo,  the  barber,  for 
Bruno  never  came  to  have  his  head  shaved  as 
clean  Christians  should  in  summer,  but  wore  his 
thick  dusky  mane  tossed  back  much  like  a 
lion's. 

"  Brutal  bad  !  "  echoed  Papuccio,  who  was  a 
tailor,  with  slack  work.  "  No  doubt  that  little 
fly-blow  is  his  own,  and  see  how  he  fathers  it  on 
Lippo.  Lippo  has  as  good  as  told  me  it  was  that 
poor  Frita's  child  by  Bruno ;  you  remember  her, 
a  pretty  young  girl,  died  of  a  ball  in  the  throat — 
or  they  said  so — very  likely  it  was  Bruno,  that 
wrung  her  neck  in  a  rage — I  should  not  w^onder. 
He  would  have  left  the  boy  to  starve,  only  Lippo 
took  it  home,  and  shamed  him." 

"  He  is  good  to  the  child  now,"  said  Noe,  the 
tinman,  who  had  a  weakness  for  seeing  both  sides 
of  a  question,  which  made  him  very  disagreeable 
company. 

"  Oh  hi !  "    demurred    the   barber,    with    his 


SIGNA.  141 


under-lip  out  in  dubious  reply.  "The  other  day 
the  little  lad  was  bathing  with  my  youngster,  and 
I  saw  his  back  all  blue  and  browTi  with  bruises. 
'  Is  he  such  a  bad  child  you  beat  him  so  ?'  I 
said  to  Lippo,  for  indeed  he  was  horrid  to  look  at, 
and  Lippo,  good  man,  looked  troubled.  ^  Bruno 
will  be  violent,'  he  told  me  quite  reluctantly, 
*  he  forgets  the  child  is  small.'  Oh,  I  dare- 
say he  does  forget,  and  when  he  has  him  alone 
there  flays  him  of  half  his  skin  ! " 

"Why  say  the  child  was  Bruno's  or  Frita's, 
either.  He  was  found  in  the  fields  at  the  great 
flood,  and  Frita  was  dead  a  year  before,"  said 
Noe,  who  had  that  awkward  and  unsocial  quality, 
n  memory.  "  Not  but  what  I  daresa}^  it  is 
Bruno's,  and  perhaps  he  pays  for  it,"  he  added 
with  an  afterthought,  willing  to  be  popular. 

"  No,  not  a  stiver,"  said  the  barber.  "  Lippo 
and  Nita  have  said  to  me  a  score  of  times,  '  we 
took  the  boy  from  pity,  and  we  keep  it  from  pity. 
Not  a  pin's  worth  shall  we  ever  see  back  again 
this  side  heaven.  But  what  matter  that.  When  we 
feed  eight  mouths  it  is  not  much  to  feed  a  ninth.' 
They  are  good  people,  Lippo  and  his  wife." 


142  SIGNA. 


"  Good  as  gold,"  said  Brizzo,  the  butcher, 
'^  and  saving  money,  or  I  suppose  it  is  old  Baldo's ; 
they  have  bought  that  little  pasture  up  at  Santa 
Lucia;  a  snug  little  place,  and  twenty  little 
Maremma  sheep  upon  it  as  fat  as  I  ever  put  knife 
into  ; — Lippo  has  God's  grace." 

"  A  fair  spoken  man  always,  and  good  com- 
pany," said  Momo,  who  had  shaved  him  bare  and 
smooth  as  a  melon  that  very  morning. 

This  was  the  general  opinion  in  the  Lastra. 
Lippo  who  had  always  a  soft  smart  word  for  every- 
body ;  who  smiled  so  on  people  who  knew  he 
hated  them,  that  they  believed  they  were  loved 
whilst  he  was  smiling  ;  who  was  always  ready  for 
a  nice  game  at  dominoes  or  cards,  and  if  he  did 
cheat  a  little,  did  it  so  well  that  no  one  could 
fail  to  respect  him  the  more  for  it ;  Lippo  was 
well  spoken  of  by  his  townsfolk,  and  one  of  the 
Council  of  the  Misericordia  had  been  often  heard 
to  say  that  there  was  not  a  better  man  in  all  the 
province. 

But  Bruno,  now  that  he  chose  to  save  money, 
was  a  very  son  of  the  fiend  without  a  spot  of 
light  anywhere.     Now  that  he  would  never  drink, 


SIGNA.  143 


and  now  that  lie  would  never  marry,  the  Lastra 
gave  hun  over  to  Satan,  body  and  soul,  and  for 
all  time. 

Bruno  cared  nothing  at  all.  They  might  split 
their  throats  for  any  notice  that  he  took. 

"  111  words,  rot  no  wheat,"  he  would  say  to  liis 
one  friend,  Cecco,  the  cooper ;  who  lived  across 
by  the  bridge,  and  had  a  workshop  there,  with 
a  great  open  arch  of  the  thirteenth  century 
sculpture,  and  a  square  window  with  crossed  bars 
of  iron,  and  a  screen  of  vine-foliage  behind  it  that 
might  have  been  the  backgromid  of  a  pieta — so 
beautiful  was  it  when  the  sun  shone  through  the 
leaves. 

He  went  on  his  own  ways,  ploughing  with 
his  oxen,  pruning  his  olives,  sowing  and  reap- 
ing, and  making  the  best  of  his  land,  and 
going  down  on  market  days  into  the  city, 
looking  as  if  he  had  stepped  out  of  Ghirlan- 
daio's  panels,  but  himself  knowing  nothing  of 
that,  nor  thinking  of  anj^thing  except  the  sam- 
ples of  grain  in  his  palm  or  the  cabbages  in  his 
cart. 

Bruno  cared  nothing  for  other  folks'  opinions. 


144  SIGNA, 


What  he  cared  for  was  to  keep  faith  with 
Pippa  in  that  mute  compact  born  of  his  remorse, 
which  he  firmly  believed  the  saints  had  witnessed 
on  her  behalf. 

He  had  cared  nothing  for  the  child  at  first,  but 
lis  it  had  grown  older,  and  each  year  caught  hold 
of  his  hand  more  fondly,  as  if  it  felt  a  friend,  and 
lifted  up  to  him  its  great  soft  serious  eyes,  a 
personal  affection  for  this  young  life  which  he 
alone  protected,  grew  slowly  upon  him ;  and  as 
the  boy  became  older,  and  the  intelhgence  and 
fancies  of  his  eager  mind  awed  the  man  whilst  they 
bewildered  him,  Bruno  loved  him  with  the  deep 
love  of  a  dark  and  lonely  soul,  for  the  sole  thing 
in  which  it  makes  its  possibility  of  redemption 
here  and  hereafter. 

He  sat  now  at  the  house-door  and  watched 
the  running  figure  so  long  as  it  was  in  sight. 
When  the  bottom  of  the  hill  was  reached  and 
the  path  turned  under  the  lower  vines,  he  lost 
him  quite,  and  onlj^  knew  that  he  must  still 
be  running  on,  on,  on,  under  all  those  roofs  and 
tangles  of  green  leaves. 

He  was  not  quite  at  ease  about  him.     The  boy 


SIGNA.  145 


never  complained ;  nsiy,  if  questioned,  insisted  lie 
was  happy.  But  Bruno  mistrusted  his  brother, 
and  he  doubted  the  peace  of  that  household. 
The  children,  always  grovelling  and  scream- 
ing, greedy  and  jealous,  he  hated.  It  was  not 
the  nest  for  this  young  nightingale — that  he  felt. 
But  he  did  not  see  what  better  to  do. 

Lippo  held  him  fast  by  his  word ;  and  he  had 
no  proof  that  the  boy  was  really  ill-used.  Some- 
times he  saw  bruises  on  him,  but  there  was 
always  some  story  of  an  accident,  or  of  a  childish 
quarrel  to  account  for  these,  or  of  some  just 
punishment,  and  he,  roughly  reared  himself, 
knew  that  boys  needed  such ;  and  Signa's  lips 
were  mute ;  or  if  they  ever  did  open,  said  only 
''they  are  good  to  me," — a  lie,  for  which  he 
confessed  and  besought  pardon  on  his  knees 
in  the  little  dark  corner  in  the  Misericordia 
church. 

Still  Bruno  was  not  satisfied.  But  what  to 
alter  he  knew  not,  and  he  was  not  a  man  who 
could  spare  time  or  acquire  the  habit  of  holding 
communion  with  his  own  thoughts. 

When  the  child  had  quite  gone  out  of  sight,  he 

VOL,   I.  L 


146  SIGNA. 


rose  and  took  his  sickle  again  and  went  back  to 
his  wheat. 

He  seldom  had  anyone  in  to  help  him ;  men 
were  careless  sometimes,  and  split  the  straw  in 
reaping,  and  spoiled  it  for  the  plaiters.  He 
generally  got  all  the  wheat  in  between  S.  Procolo's 
day  and  S.  Paul's;  and  the  barley  he  took 
later. 

The  evening  fell  suddenly ;  where  this  land  lies 
they  lose  the  sunset  because  of  the  great  rise  of 
the  hills  ;  they  see  a  great  globe  of  fire  dropping 
downward,  it  touches  the  purple  of  the  mountain, 
and  then  all  is  night  at  once. 

The  bats  came  out  and  the  night  kestrels  and 
the  wood  owls,  and  went  hunting  to  and  fro. 
Nameless  melodious  sounds  echoed  from  tree  to 
tree.  The  cicali  went  to  bed  and  the  grilli 
hummed  about  in  their  stead ;  they  are  cousins, 
only  one  likes  the  day  and  the  other  the  night. 
The  fireflies  flitted,  faint  and  paling,  over  the 
fallen  corn.  When  the  wheat  was  reaped  their 
day  was  done.  Later  on  a  faint  light  came 
above  the  far  Umbrian  hills — a  faint  light  in 
the  sky  like  the  dawn ;  then  a  little  longer,  and 


SIGNA.  147 


out  of  tlie  light  rose  the  moon,  a  round  world 
of  gold  ablaze  above  the  dark,  making  the  tree- 
boughs  that  crossed  her  disc,  look  black. 

But  Bruno  looked  at  none  of  it. 

He  had  not  eyes  Hke  Pippa's  child. 

He  stooped  and  cut  his  wheat,  laymg  it  in 
ridges  tenderly.  The  fii'ellies  put  out  their  lights 
because  the  wheat  was  dead. 

But  the  glowworms  under  the  leaves  in  the 
grass  shone  on  ;  they  were  pale  and  blue,  and 
they  could  not  dance ;  they  never  knew  what  it 
was  to  wheel  in  the  air,  or  to  fly  so  high  that  men 
took  them  for  stars  ;  they  never  saw  the  tree-tops 
or  the  nests  of  the  hawks,  or  the  lofty  magnolia 
flowers,  the  fireflies  only  could  do  all  that ;  but 
then  the  glowworms  lived  on  from  year  to  year, 
and  the  death  of  the  wheat  was  nothing  to  them ; 
they  w^ere  worms  of  good  sense,  and  had  holes  in 
the  gi'ound. 

They  twinkled  on  the  sod  as  long  as  they 
liked,  and  pitied  the  fireflies,  burning  themselves 
out  by  soaring  so  high,  and  dying  because  their 
loves  were  dead. 


l2 


CHAPTER  IX. 


The  child  Signa  ran  on  through  the  soft  grey 
night. 

Toto  was  afraid  of  the  night,  but  he — never. 

The  fireflies  ran  with  him  along  the  waves  of 
the  standing  corn.  Wheat  was  cut  first  on  the 
sunniest  land,  and  there  was  much  still  left  un- 
reapen  on  the  lower  ground. 

One  wonders  there  are  no  fairies  where  there 
are  fireflies,  for  fireflies  seem  fairies.  But 
no  fairies  are  found  where  the  Greek  gods 
have  lived.  Frail  Titania  has  no  place  beside 
Demeter;  even  Puck  will  not  venture  to  rufile 
Pan's  sleep;  and  where  the  harp  of  Apollo  Cyn- 
thoerides  was  once  heard,  Ariel  does  not  dare 
sing  his  song  to  the  bees. 


SIGNA.  149 


Signa  caught  a  firefly  in  his  hand  and  watched 
it  burn  a  minute  and  then  let  it  loose  agam,  and 
ran  on  his  way. 

He  wished  he  could  be  one  of  them,  uj?  in 
the  air  so  high,  with  that  light  always  showing 
them  all  they  wished  to  know ;  seeing  how  the 
owls  lived  on  the  roofs  of  the  towers,  and  how 
the  bees  ruled  their  commonwealth  on  the  top  of 
the  acacias,  and  how  the  snow  blossom  came  out 
of  the  brown  magnolia  si)ikes,  and  how  the  cypress 
tree  made  her  golden  balls,  and  how  the  stone- 
pine  added  cubics  to  his  height  so  noiselessly  and 
fast,  and  how  the  clouds  looked  to  the  swallows 
that  lived  so  near  them  on  the  chapel  belfries, 
and  how  the  wheat  felt  when  it  saw  the  sickle, 
and  whether  it  was  pained  to  die  and  leave  the 
sun,  or  whether  it  was  glad  to  go  and  still  the 
pain  of  hungry  children.  Oh  what  he  would  ask 
and  know,  he  thought,  if  only  he  were  a  firefly  ! 

But  he  was  only  a  little  boy  with  nothing  to 
teach  him  anything,  and  a  heart  too  big  for  his 
body,  and  no  wings  to  rise  upon,- but  only  feet  to 
carry  him,  that  were  often  tired,  and  bruised,  and 
weary  of  the  dust. 


150  SIGNA. 


So  he  ran  down  towards  the  Lastra,  stumbling 
and  going  slowlj^  because  he  was  in  the  dark, 
and  also  because  he  was  so  constantly  looking 
upward  at  the  fireflies,  that  he  lost  his  footing 
many  times. 

Across  the  bridge,  he  turned  aside  and  went  ui^ 
into  the  fields  to  the  right  of  him  before  he 
walked  on  to  the  Lastra. 

Between  the  bridge  and  the  Lastra  it  is 
a  picturesque  and  broken  country.  On  one 
side  is  the  river,  and  on  the  other  hilly  ground, 
green  with  plumes  of  corn,  and  hedges  of  briar- 
rose,  and  tall  rustling  poplars,  and  up  above, 
cypresses ;  and  old  villas,  noble  in  decay, 
and  monasteries  with  frescoes  crumbling  to 
dust,  and  fortresses  that  are  barns  and  stables 
for  cattle,  and  convent  chapels,  whose  solitary 
bell  answers  the  bells  of  the  goats  as  they 
graze. 

Signa  ran  up  the  steep  grassy  ways  a  little, 
and  through  a  field  or  two  under  the  canes, 
twice  his  own  height,  and  came  to  a  little  cottage, 
much  lower,  smaller,  and  more  miserable  than 
Bruno's  house ;   a  cottage  that  had   only  a  few 


SIGNA.  151 


roods  of  soil  apportioned  to  it,  and  those  not 
very  arable. 

Before  its  door  there  were  several  sheaves  of 
corn  lying  on  the  ground  ;  all  its  produce  except 
the  few  vegetables  it  yielded.  The  grain  had 
been  cut  the  day  before  and  was  not  carried  in 
on  account  of  the  day  being  a  holy  one,  for  its 
owner  did  not  venture  to  risk  his  hereafter  as 
Bruno  had  dared  to  do. 

The  man  was  sitting  on  the  stone  bench  out- 
side his  door;  a  good-humoured  fellow,  lazy, 
stupid,  very  poor,  but  quite  contented.  He  was 
one  of  the  labourers  in  the  gardens  of  a  great 
villa  close  by,  called  Giovoh.  He  had  many 
children,  and  was  as  poor  as  it  is  possible  to 
be  without  begging  on  the  roads. 

"Where  is  Gemma,"  called  Signa.  The 
man  pointed  in-doors  with  the  stem  of  his 
pipe: 

"  Gone  to  bed,  and  Palma  too,  and  I  go  too, 
in  a  mmute  or  less ;  you  are  out  late,  little 
fellow." 

"  I  have  been  with  Bruno,"  said  Signa,  un- 
folding his  cabbage  leaf  and  his  currants  in  the 


152  8IGNA. 


starlight,  that  was  beginning  to  gleam  through 
the  deep  shadow  of  the  early  evening.  * '  Look,  I 
have  brought  these  for  Gemma ;  may  I  run  in 
and  give  them  to  her  ?     They  are  so  sweet ! " 

The  gardener,  who  was  called  Sandro  by  every- 
bodj^  his  name  being  Alessandro  Zanobetto, 
nodded  in  assent.  He  was  a  good-natured, 
idle,  mirthful  soul,  and  could  never  see  why 
Lippo's  wife  should  treat  the  child  so  cruelly; 
he  had  plagues  enough  himself,  but  never  beat 
them. 

*'  If  Gemma  be  asleep  she  will  wake,  if  there 
be  anything  to' get,"  he  said,  with  a  little  chuckle; 
himself  he  thought  Palma  worth  a  thousand  of 
her. 

Signa  ran  indoors. 

It  was  a  square-built  place,  all  littered  and  un- 
tidy ;  there  were  hens  at  roost,  and  garden  refuse, 
and  straw  with  a  kid  and  its  mother  on  it ;  and 
a  table  and  a  bench  or  two,  and  a  crucifix  with  a 
bough  of  willow,  and  in  the  corner,  a  bed  of  hay 
upon  the  floor,  sweet-smelling,  and  full  of  dr}^ 
flowers. 

Two  children   were  in  it,  all   hidden    in  the 


SIGN  J.  153 


hay,  except  their  heads  and  the  pomts  of  their 
feet. 

One  was  dark,  a  little  brown,  strong,  soft- 
ejed  child,  and  the  other  was  of  that  curious 
fairness,  with  the  hair  of  reddened  gold,  and  the 
eyes  like  summer  skies,  which  the  old  Goths  have 
left  here  and  there  in  the  Latin  races.  Both 
were  asleep. 

They  were  like  two  little  amorini  in  any  old 
painting,  with  their  curving  limbs,  and  their  curly 
heads,  and  their  rosy  mouths,  curled  up,  in  the 
withered  grasses  ;  the  boy  did  not  know  anything 
about  that,  but  he  vaguely  felt  that  it  was  pretty 
to  see  them  lying  so,  just  as  it  was  pretty  to  see 
a  cluster  of  pomegranate  flowers  blowing  in  the 
sun. 

He  stole  up  on  tiptoe,  and  touching  the 
cheek  of  the  fair  one  with  a  bunch  of  currants, 
laughed  to  see  her  blue  bright  eyes  open  wide  on 
him  with  a  stare. 

"  I  have  brought  you  some  fruit,  Gemma," 
he  said,  and  tried  to  kiss  her. 

"  Give  me  !  give  me  quick !  "  cried  the  little 
child  tumbling  up  half  erect  in  the  hay,  the  dried 


154  SIGNA. 


daisies  in  lier  crumpled  curls,  and  lier  little  bare 
cliest  and  shoulders  fit  for  a  statue  of  Cupid.  She 
pushed  away  his  lips ;   she  wanted  the  fruit. 

"  If  I  do  not  eat  it  quick,  Palma  will  wake," 
she  whispered,  and  began  to  crunch  them  in  her 
tiny  teeth  as  the  kid  did  its  grasses.  The 
dark  child  did  wake,  and  lifted  herself  on  her 
elbow. 

''It  is  Signal"  she  cried,  with  a  little  coo  of 
delight  like  a  wood  pigeon's. 

''  I  kept  you  no  currants,  Palma  ! "  said  Signa, 
with  a  sudden  pang  of  self-reproach.  He  knew 
that  he  had  done  unkindly. 

Palma  looked  a  little  sorrowful.  They  were 
very  poor,  and  never  hardly  tasted  anything 
except  the  black  bread,  like  the  dogs. 

''Never  mind;  come  and  kiss  me,"  she  said, 
with  a  Httle  sigh. 

Signa  went  round  and  kissed  her.  But  he 
went  back  to  Gemma  again. 

"  Goodnight,"  he  said  to  the  pretty  white  child, 
sitting  up  in  the  hay;  and  he  kissed  her  once 
more.  So  Gemma  was  kissed  twice  ;  and  had  the 
currants  as  well. 


SIGNA.  155 


Palma  was  used  to  that. 

Signa  ran  out  with  a  hardened  conscience. 
He  knew  he  had  been  unjust ;  but  then  if  he  had 
given  any  of  the  currants  to  Palma,  Gemma  never 
woukl  have  kissed  him  at  all. 

He  liked  them  both ;  little  things  of  ten  and 
nine,  living  with  their  father  and  their  brothers 
close  to  the  gates  of  the  great  garden,  low  down 
on  the  same  hill  where,  higher,  Lippo's  sheep 
were  kept. 

He  liked  them  both,  having  seen  them  from 
babyhood,  and  paddled  in  the  brook  under  the 
poplars  with  them,  and  strung  them  chains  of 
berries,  and  played  them  tunes  on  the  pipes  he 
cut  from  the  reeds. 

They  were  both  his  playfellows,  pretty  little 
things,  half-naked,  bare-footed,  fed  by  the  air 
and  the  sun,  and  tumbhng  into  life,  as  little 
rabbits  do  amongst  the  grass. 

But  Palma  he  did  not  care  about,  and  about 
Gemma  he  did.  For  Gemma  was  a  thousand 
times  the  prettier,  and  Palma  loved  him  always, 
that  he  knew ;  but  of  Gemma  he  never  was  so 
sure. 


156  SIGNA. 


Nevertheless,  he  knew  he  had  not  done  them 
justice  ahout  those  currants,  and  he  was  sorry 
for  it,  as  he  ran  along  the  straight  road  into  the 
Lastra,  and  with  one  look  upward  to  the  gateway 
that  he  loved,  though  he  could  not  see  the  colour 
on  the  parapet  because  it  was  dark,  he  darted 
onward  quickly  lest  the  gates  should  close  for 
the  night  and  he  be  punished  and  turned  hack- 
ward,  and  hurried  up  the  passage  into  Lippo's 
house. 

Lippo  lived  in  a  steep  paved  road  above  the 
Place  of  Arms,  and  close  to  the  open-arched 
loggia  of  what  used  to  be  the  wood  market, 
against  the  southern  gate.  There  is  no  great 
beauty  about  the  place,  and  jet  it  has  light  and 
shade,  and  colour,  and  antiquit}^,  to  charm  a 
Prout  or  furnish  a  Canaletto.  The  loggia  has 
the  bold  round  arches  that  Orcagna  most  loved  ; 
the  walls  have  the  dim,  soft  brown  and  greys 
of  age,  with  flecks  of  colour,  where  the  frescoes 
once  were  ;  through  the  gateway  there  come  the 
ox  carts  and  the  mules,  and  the  herds  of  goats, 
down  the  steep  paved  way ;  there  is  a  quiver  of 
green  leaves,  a  breadth  of  blue  sk}^,  and  at  the 


8IGNA.  157 


bottom  of  the  passage-way  there  is  a  shrine  of 
our  Lady  of  Good  Council,  so  old  that  the 
people  can  tell  you  nothing  of  it ;  you  can  see 
the  angels  still  with  their  illumined  wings,  and 
the  Virgin  with  raj^s  of  gold,  who  sits  behind  a 
wicket  of  grey  wood,  with  a  carven  M  inter- 
laced before  her,  and  quaint  little  doors  that 
oiDen  and  shut ;  but  of  who  made  it  or  first  set 
it  up  for  worship  there  tlie}^  can  tell  you  nothing 
at  all. 

It  is  only  a  bit  of  the  Lastra  that  nobody  sees 
except  the  fattori  rattling  over  the  stones  in 
their  light  carts,  or  the  contadini  going  in  for 
their  master's  letters,  or  now  and  then  a  noble 
driving  to  his  villa,  and  the  country  folks  coming 
for  justice  or  for  sentence  to  the  Prefettura.  But 
there  is  beauty  in  it,  and  poetry;  and  the 
Madonna  who  sits  behind  her  little  grey  wicket 
has  seen  so  much  since  first  the  hlies  of  liberty 
were  carved  on  the  bold  east  gate. 

The  boy's  heart  beat  quickly  as  he  went  up  the 
stairs  ;  he  was  brave  in  a  sh}^,  silent  way,  and  he 
believed  that  the  angels  were  very  near^  and 
would  help  him  some  day.     Still  Nita's  weighty 


158  SIGNA. 


arm,  and  the  force  of  her  alder  twigs  or  her  ash 
stem,  were  not  things  to  be  got  rid  of  by  dream- 
ing, and  the  angels  were  ver}^  slow  to  come  ;  no 
doubt  because  he  was  not  'good  enough,  as  Signa 
thought  sorrowfully.  And  he  had  sent  them 
further  away  from  him  than  ever  by  that  unjust 
act  about  the  currants,  so  that  his  heart  throbbed 
fast  as  he  climbed  the  rickety  stairs  where  the 
spiders  had  it  all  their  own  way,  and  the  old 
scorpions  never  were  frightened  by  a  broom, 
which  made  them  very  happy,  because  scorpions 
hate  a  broom,  and  tumble  down  dead  at  the  sight 
of  one  (cleanliness  having  immeasurable  power 
over  them),  in  as  moral  an  allegory  as  .^sop  and 
Fontaine  could  ever  have  wdshed  to  draw. 

Nita  and  all  her  noisy  brood  were  standing 
together  over  the  table  wdth  a  big  loaf  on  it,  and 
an  empty  bowl  and  flasks  of  oil  and  vinegar, 
getting  ready  for  supper. 

Lippo  was  down  in  the  street  playing  domi- 
noes, and  old  Baldo  was  sitting  below  puzzling 
out,  by  a  bronze  lamp,  from  a  book  of  dreams, 
some  signs  he  had  had  visions  of  in  a  doze,  to 
see  their  numbers  for  the  tombola. 


SIGNA.  159 


*'  How  late  3^011  are,  yoii  little  plague,  I 
gave  you  till  sunset,"  screamed  Nita,  as  she 
saw  him.  "  And  where  is  the  salad — give  me — 
quick!" 

"  I  am  very  sorry,"  stammered  Signa,  timidl3\ 
"  The  salad  ?     I  forgot  it.     I  am  very  sorry  !  " 

"  Sorry ;  and  I  waiting  all  this  time  for  sup- 
per," shrieked  Nita.  "  Nothing  to  do  but  just 
to  cut  a  lettuce,  and  some  endive  off  the  ground, 
and  you  forget  it.  Where  have  joii  been  all 
day  ?  " 

"  With  Bruno." 

"  With  Bruno — of  course  with  Bruno — and 
could  not  bring  a  salad  off  his  land.  The  only 
thing  you  had  to  think  of,  and  we  waiting  for 
supper,  and  the  sun  over  the  mountains  more 
than  an  hour  ago,  and  you  stuffed  up  there,  I 
warrant,  like  a  fatting  goose  !  " 

**  I  had  some  bread  and  milk,"  said  Signa. 
He  was  trembling  in  all  his  little  limbs ;  he 
could  not  help  this,  they  beat  him  so,  so  often, 
and  he  knew  well  what  was  coming. 

"And  nothing  else?"  screamed  Nita,  for 
every  good  thing   that  went   to   him   she    con- 


160  8IGNA. 


siclered  robbery  and  violence  done  on  her  own 
children. 

''  I  had  fruit — but  I  took  it  to  Zanobetto's 
girls,"  said  Signa,  very  low,  because  he  was  such 
a  foolish  little  fellow,  that  neither  example,  nor 
execration,  nor  constant  influence  of  lying  could 
ever  make  him  untruthful,  and  a  child  is  always 
either  untruthful  or  most  exaggerately  exact  in 
truth — there  is  no  medium  for  him. 

"  And  not  to  us,"  screeched  Nita's  eldest 
daughter,  and  boxed  him  on  the  ear. 

"  You  little  beast,"  said  Georgio,  the  biggest 
boy,  and  kicked  him. 

Toto  waited  about,  and  sprang  on  him  like  a 
cat,  and  pulled  his  hair  till  he  tore  some  curls 
out  by  the  roots. 

Signa  was  very  pale,  but  he  never  made 
sound  nor  effort.  He  stood  stock-still  and 
mute,  and  bore  it.  He  had  seen  pictures  of  S. 
Stephen  and  S.  Lawrence  and  of  Christ — and  they 
were  still  and  quiet  always,  letting  their  enemies 
have  their  way.  Perhaps,  if  he  were  still  too,  he 
thought,  it  might  be  forgiven  to  him — that  sin 
about  the  currants. 


SIGN  A.  161 


Nita,  with  ;in  iron  hand,  sent  her  offsprings  off, 
reeling  to  their  places,  and  seized  him  herself 
and  stripped  him. 

He  was  all  bruised  from  the  night's  beating 
still ;  but  she  did  not  pause  for  that.  She 
plucked  down  her  rod  of  alder  twigs,  and 
thrashed  him  till  he  bled  again.  Then  threw 
him  into  the  hay  in  the  inner  room  beyond  where 
the  boys  slept. 

All  the  time  he  was  quite  mute.  Shut  up  in 
the  dark  his  courage  gave  way  under  the  pain, 
and  he  burst  out  crying. 

"  Dear  angels,  do  not  be  angry  with  me  any 
more,"  he  prayed,  "  and  I  only  did  it  to  make 
Gemma  happy;  and  the}^  beat  me  so  here,  and 
I  never  tell  Bruno." 

But  the  angels,  wherever  they  be,  never 
now  come  this  side  of  the  sun  :  and  Signa  lay 
all  alone  in  the  dark,  and  got  no  rest  nor 
answer. 

*'  The  lute  will  be  sorry,"  he  thought,  getting 
tired  of  waiting  for  the  angels. 

He  told  all  his  sorrows  and  joys  to  the  lute, 
and  he  was  sure  it  understood,  for  did  it  not 

YOL.    I.  M 


162 


STGNA. 


sing  with  liim,   or   sigh  with   him,  just   as  his 
heart  taught  it  ? 

*'I  will  tell  the  lute,"  said  Signa,  sobbing  in 
his  straw,  with  a  vague  babjdsh  dim  sense  of  the 
great  truth  that  his  art  is  the  only  likeness  of 
an  angel  that  the  singer  ever  sees  on  earth. 


CHAPTER  X. 


The  little  fellow  had  a  laborious  life  at  the 
best  of  times,  but  he  had  so  grown  up  in  it  that 
it  never  occurred  to  him  to  repine. 

True  Toto,  the  same  age  as  himself,  and  a 
mother's  darling,  led  one  just  as  lazy  and  agree- 
able as  his  was  hard  and  over-worked.  Toto 
sported  in  the  sun  at  pleasure,  played  morra  for 
halfpence,  robbed  cherry  trees,  slept  through  noon, 
devoured  fried  beans  and  green  almonds  and  arti- 
chokes in  oil,  and  refused  to  be  of  any  earthly  use 
to  any  human  creatui'e  through  all  his  dii'ty  idle 
days  as  best  beseemed  to  him."  But  Signa  from 
the  cradle  upward  had  been  taught  to  give  way  to 
Toto,  and  been  taught  to  know  that  the  measure 
of  life  for  Toto  was  golden  and  for  him  was  lead. 

M  2 


164  SIGNA. 


It  had  always  been  so  from  the  first,  when  Nita 
had  laid  him  hungry  in  the  hay  to  turn  to  Toto 
full  but  screaming. 

Signa,  sent  out  in  the  dark  before  the  sun  rose 
to  see  to  the  sheep  on  the  hill,  kept  on  the  hill 
winter  and  summer  if  he  were  not  sent  higher 
to  fetch  things  from  Bruno's  garden  and  fields ; 
running  on  a  dozen  errands  a  day  for  Baldo  or 
Lippo  or  Nita;  trotting  by  the  donkey's  side 
with  vegetables  along  the  seven  dusty  miles  into 
the  city,  and  trotting  back  again  afoot,  because 
the  donkey  was  laden  with  charcoal,  or  linen  to 
be  washed,  or  some  other  town  burden  that  Lippo 
earned  a  penny  by  in  fetching  for  his  neigh- 
bours ;  early  and  late,  in  heat  and  in  cold,  when 
the  south  wind  scorched,  as  when  the  north  wind 
howled,  Signa  was  always  on  his  feet,  doing  this 
and  that  and  the  other.  But  he  had  got  quite 
used  to  it,  and  thought  it  a  wonderful  treat  that 
they  allowed  him  to  sing  now  and  then  for  the 
priests,  and  that  he  let  his  voice  loose  as  loud  as 
he  liked  on  the  hill-sides  and  in  the  fields. 

When  he  went  up  into  these  fields  and  knew  the 
beautiful  Tuscan  world  in  summer,  the  liberty 


SIGNA.  165 


and  the  loveliness  of  it  made  him  happy  without 
his  knowing  why,  because  the  poetic  temper  was 
alive  in  him. 

The  little  breadths  of  grass-land  white  as 
snow  with  a  million  cups  of  the  earth-creeping 
bindweed.  The  yellow  wheat  clambering  the 
hill-sides  and  darkened  to  ruddy  bronze  when  the 
vine-shadows  fell  over  it.  The  springtide  glory 
of  the  Judas  trees,  which  here  they  call  in  cruel 
irony  the  Tree  of  Love,  with  their  rose  flowers 
blushing  amongst  the  great  walnuts  and  the  cone- 
dropping  firs.  The  fig-trees  and  the  apple-trees 
flinging  their  boughs  together  in  June,  Like  children 
clasping  arms  in  play.  The  glowworm  lying 
under  the  moss,  while  the  fireflies  shone  aloft  in 
the  leaves.  The  blue  butterflies  astir  like  living 
cornflowers  amongst  the  bearded  barley,  and 
the  dainty  grace  of  the  oats.  The  little  shallow 
brooks  sleeping  in  sun  and  shade  under  the 
green  canes,  with  the  droll  frogs  talking  of  the 
weather.  The  cistus,  that  looks  so  like  the  dog- 
rose  that  you  pluck  one  for  the  other  every 
day,  covering  the  rough  loose  stones  and  crumb- 
ling walls  with  beaut}'  so    delicate  you  fear  to 


166  SIGNA. 


breathe  on  it.  The  long  turf  paths  between  the 
vines,  left  for  the  bullocks  to  pass  by  in  vintage 
time,  and  filled  with  colours  from  clover  or 
iris,  blue  bugloss,  or  bright  fritillaria.  The 
wayside  crucifixes,  so  hidden  in  coils  of  vine 
and  growing  stalks  of  rush-like  millet  and 
the  swaying  fronds  of  acacia  off-shoots  that 
you  scarce  can  see  the  cross  for  the  foliage. 
The  high  hills  that  seem  to  sleep  against  the 
sun,  so  still  they  look,  and  dim  and  dreamful,  with 
clouds  of  olives,  soft  as  mist,  and  flecks  of  wdiite 
where  the  mountain  villages  are,  distant  as  far  off 
sails  of  ships,  and  full,  like  them,  of  vague  fancy 
and  hope  and  perils  of  the  past.  All  these 
things  were  beautiful  to  him,  and  he  was  very 
happy  when  he  went  up  to  Bruno. 

Besides,  this  tall  dark  fellow,  who  scowled  on 
everyone  and  should  have  been  a  brigand,  people 
said,  was  always  good  to  him. 

He  had  to  work,  indeed,  for  Bruno,  to  carry 
the  cabbages  into  the  town,  to  pump  the  water 
from  the  tanks,  to  pick  the  insects  ofi'  the  vines, 
to  cut  the  distaff  canes,  to  carry  the  cow  her 
fresh  fodder,  to  do  all  the  many  things  that  are 


SIGNA.  167 


always  wanting  to  be  done  from  dawn  to  eve 
on  a  little  farm.  But  then  Bruno  always  spared 
liim  half  an  hour  for  his  lute,  always  gave  him 
a  good  meal,  always  let  him  enjoy  himself  when 
he  could,  and  constantly  interceded  to  get  him 
spared  labour  on  a  feast  da}^  and  leave  to  attend 
the  communal  school. 

He  did  not  wonder  either  at  Bruno's  kindness 
or  at  the  other's  unkindness;  because  children 
take  good  and  evil  as  the  birds  take  rain  and 
sunsliine.  But  it  lightened  the  troubles  of  his 
young  life  and  made  them  bearable. 

He  had  never  wandered  farther  than  the  hills 
above  the  town,  and  sometimes  he  w^as  sent  with 
the  donkey  into  Florence;  that  was  all.  But 
the  war-worn  staunch  old  Lastra  is  enough  world 
for  a  child ;  it  would  be  too  wide  a  one  for  an 
historian,  could  all  its  stones  have  tongues. 

It  is  a  trite  saying  that  it  is  not  what  we  see 
but  how  we  see  that  matters ;  and  Signa  saw 
in  his  battle-dinted  world-forsaken  little  town 
more  things  and  more  meanings  than  a  million 
grown-up  wanderers  would  have  seen  in  the 
width  of  man}"  countries. 


168  SIGNA, 


He  got  the  old  men  to  tell  him  stories  of  it 
in  the  great  republican  centuries ;  the  stories 
were  apocryphal,  no  doubt,  but  had  that  fitness 
which  almost  does  as  well  as  truth  in  popular 
traditions,  and,  indeed,  is  truth  itself  in  a 
measure. 

He  knew  how  to  read,  and  in  old  muniment 
rooms,  going  to  decay  in  farmhouses  and  gran- 
aries, found  tattered  chronicles  which  he  could 
spell  out  with  more  or  less  success.  He  knew 
all  the  old  towers  and  ruined  fortresses  as 
the  owls  knew  them.  When  he  got  a  little  time 
to  himself,  which  was  not  very  often,  he  would 
wander  away  up  into  the  high  places  and  play  his 
lute  to  the  sunny  silence,  and  fancy  himself  a 
minstrel  like  those  he  saw  in  the  illuminations  of 
the  vellum  rolls  that  the  rats  ate  in  many  a  villa, 
once  a  palace  and  now  a  wine-warehouse,  whose 
lords  had  died  out  root  and  branch.  Wading  knee- 
deep  in  the  green  river  water  amongst  the  canes 
and  the  croaking  frogs  that  the  other  boys  were 
fishing  for,  his  shining  eyes  saw  the  broad  channel 
of  the  river  filled  with  struggling  horses  and 
fighting  men,  as  they  told  him  it  had  been  in 


SIGNA.  16i> 


the  old  days  when  Castruccio  had  forded  it  and 
Ferruccio  had  ridden  over  it  with  his  lances. 

It  was  all  odds  and  ends  and  waifs  and  strays  of 
most  imperfect  knowledge  that  he  got,  for  every 
one  was  ignorant  aromid  him,  and  though  the 
j)eople  Avere  proud  of  their  history,  they  so  mixed 
it  up  with  grotesque  invention  and  distorted 
hyperbole  that  it  was  almost  worthless.  Still  the 
little  that  he  knew  made  the  old  town  beautiful  to 
him  and  venerable  and  most  wonderful,  as  Troy, 
if  he  could  see  it  entire,  would  seem  to  a  Hellenic 
scholar.  His  little  head  was  full  of  delicate  and 
glorious  fancies,  as  he  pattered  on  his  bare  brown 
feet  beside  the  donkey  under  the  gateways  of  the 
Lastra  ; — the  west  one  with  its  circlet  of  azure 
where  the  monochrom  used  to  be,  and  its  chasm  of 
green  where  the  ivy  and  bushes  grow ;  and  the 
east  one  with  its  great  stone  shields,  and  its 
yawning  depth  of  arch,  and  its  warders'  tuiTets  on 
the  roof. 

He  was  so  absorbed  in  thinking,  that  he  would 
sometimes  never  see  the  turnips  jump  out  of 
the  panniers,  or  the  chestnuts  shake  out  of  the 
sacks  on  the  donkey's  back,  and  Nita  would  beat 


170  SIGNA. 


liim  till  he  was  sick  for  leaving  them  rolling  in 
the  Lastra  streets — to  be  puzzling  about  old 
colours  on  the  tops  of  gates,  when  the  blessed 
vegetables  were  flying  loose  like  mad  things  on 
the  stones ! — it  was  enough  to  call  down  the 
instant  judgment  of  heaven,  she  averred. 

Those  gleams  of  blue  on  the  battlements,  what 
use  were  they  ?  and  as  for  the  clouds — they  were 
always  holding  off  when  they  were  wanted,  and 
coming  down  when  rain  was  ruin.  But  as  for 
turnips  and  beans — about  their  preciousness 
there  could  be  no  manner  of  doubt.  And  she 
taught  the  priority  of  the  claims  of  the  soup-pot 
with  a  thick  cudgel,  as  the  world  teaches  it  to 
the  poet.  The  poet  often  learns  the  lesson, 
and  puts  his  conscience  in  to  stew,  as  if  it 
were  an  onion ;  finding  philosophy  will  bake  no 
bread. 

But  no  beating  could  cure  Signa  of  looking 
at  the  frescoes,  and  hearing  the  angels  singing 
in  the  clouds  above. 

Signa  was  not  as  other  children  were.  To 
Nit  a  he  seemed  more  foolish  and  more  worthless 
than  any  of  them,  and  she  despised  him. 


JSIGNA.  171 


"  You  cannot  beat  the  gates  down  nor  the 
clouds,"  said  Signa,  when  she  thrashed  hmi, 
and  that  comforted  him.  But  such  an  answer 
seemed  to  Nita  the  very  pertinacy  of  the  Evil 
One  himself. 

"  He  was  an  obstinate  little  beast,"  said  Nita, 
"  and  if  it  were  not  for  that  half  of  Bruno's 
land " 

But  he  was  not  obstinate.  He  only  stretched 
towards  the  light  he  saw,  as  the  plant  in  the  cellar 
will  stretch  through  the  bars. 

Tens  of  millions  of  Httle  jpeasants  come  to  the 
birth,  and  grow  up  and  become  men,  and  do  the 
daily  bidding  of  the  world,  and  work  and  die, 
and  have  no  more  of  soul  or  Godhead  in  them 
than  the  grains  of  sand.  But  here  and  there, 
with  no  lot  different  to  his  fellows,  one  is  born 
to  dream  and  muse  and  struggle  to  the  sun  of 
higher  desires,  and  the  world  calls  such  a  one 
Burns,  or  Hadyn,  or  Giotto,  or  Shakespeare,  or 
whatever  name  the  fierce  light  of  fame  may  burn 
upon  and  make  irredescent. 

Some  other  relaxations  and  enjoyments  too  the 
child  found ;  and  here  and  there  people  were  good 


172  SIGN  A. 


to  liim;  women  for  the  sake  of  his  pretty  in- 
nocent face,  with  the  cloud  of  dusky  golden  hair 
tumbling  half  over  it  always,  and  priests  for  the 
sake  of  his  voice,  which  gave  such  beauty  to 
their  services,  when  anything  great  happened  to 
demand  a  full  ceremonial  in  their  dark,  quiet, 
frescoed  sanctuaries  scattered  under  the  hills  and 
on  them.  Indeed  Lippo  would  have  taken  him 
into  the  city,  and  made  money  of  his  singing  in 
the  celebrations  at  Easter  time,  or  on  Ascension 
Day,  or  in  Holy  Week  at  the  grand  ceremonies 
of  Rome.  But  of  that  Bruno  would  never  hear. 
He  set  his  heel  down  on  the  ground  with  an  oath. 

"  Sell  your  soul,  if  you  please,  and  the  devil 
is  fool  enough  to  pay  for  it,"  he  said,  "  but  you 
shall  never  sell  the  throat  of  Pippa's  child  like 
any  trapped  nightingale's." 

Poor  Lippo  sighed  and  yielded ;  it  was  one  of 
those  things  in  which  his  own  good  sense  and 
calm  v/isdom  had  to  let  themselves  be  overborne 
by  his  brother's  impetuous  unreason.  The 
churches — even  the  great  ones — pay  but  a  few^ 
pence ;  it  was  not  worth  while  risking  for  a  few 
coppers,  or  for  an  uncertain  future,  that  lucrative 


SIGNA. 


''half  of  my  half"   off  the  rich  fields  and  vine- 
paths  of  the  Artimino  mountam. 

So  Signa  sang  here  and  there,  a  few  times  in 
the  year,  in  the  little  choirs  about  the  Lastra 
for  nothing  at  all  hut  the  love  of  it ;  and  in 
the  Holy  AVeek  sang  in  the  church  of  the 
Misericordia,  where  one  of  his  chief  haunts  and 
sweetest  pleasures  was  found  at  all  times. 

It  is  the  only  church  within  the  Lastra  walls, 
the  parish  church  being  outside  upon  the  hills, 
and  very  little  used.  It  is  a  small  place,  grey  and 
grim  of  exterior,  with  its  red  door  veils  hanging 
down  much  worn,  and  having,  within,  its  altar 
piece  by  Cimabue,  only  shown  on  high  and 
holy  feasts  ;  no  religious  building  in  this  country, 
however  lowly,  is  quite  without  some  treasure  of 
the  kind. 

The  church  fills  to  overflowing  at  high  mass, 
and  the  people  stand  on  the  steps  and  in 
the  street,  and  the  sound  of  the  chanting  and 
the  smoke  of  the  incense,  and  the  tinkle  of  the 
little  bells  come  out  on  to  the  air  over  the  bowed 
heads,  and  with  them  there  mingle  all  sweet 
common   countr}^   sounds,   from  bleatmg  sheep 


174  SIGNA, 


and  rushing  winds,   and  watch- dogs  baying  afar 
off,  and  heaving  ropes  grating  boats  against  the 
bridge ;  and  the  i)eople  murmur  their  prayers  in 
the  sun,  and  bow  and  kneel  and  go  home  com- 
forted, if  they  know  not  very  well  why  they  are  so. 
Above  the  body  of  the  church,  led  up  to  by  a 
wooden   staircase,   there    are    the   rooms   of  the 
Fraternity  to  which  all  good  men  and  true  be- 
long for  the  love  of  the  poor  and  the  service  of 
heaven.     Eooms  divided  into   little   cells,  each 
with  the  black  robes  and  mask  of  a  brother  of 
the    order   in   it ;    and    black-lettered    lines    of 
Scripture  above,  and  the  crossbones   of  death ; 
and    closets    where    the     embroidered   banners 
are,  and  the  sacred  things  for  holy  offices,  and 
the   black  velvet   pall,   with    its  memento  mori 
and  its  golden  skulls,  that  covers  each  brother  on 
his  last  travel  to  his  latest  rest. 

Here,  in  the  stillness  and  the  silence,  with 
these  symbols  of  death  everywhere  around,  there 
dwelt  at  this  time  in  the  dull  songless  church  a 
man  who,  in  his  day,  had  been  a  careless  wan- 
dering singer,  loving  his  art  honestly,  though 
himself  one  of  the  lowliest  of  her  servitors. 


SIGN  A.  175 


Born  ill  the  Lastra,  with  a  sweet  voice  and  an 
untrained  love  of  harmony,  his  tastes  had  led 
him  to  wander  away  from  it,  and  join  one  of  the 
troops  of  musicians  who  make  the  chance  com- 
panies in  the  many  small  theatres  that  are  to 
be  found  in  the  Italian  towns  which  he  out  of 
the  great  highways,  and  are  hardly  known  by 
name,  except  in  their  own  commune.  He  had 
never  risen  high  in  his  profession,  though  a 
favourite  in  the  little  cities,  but  had  always 
wandered  about  from  season  to  season  from 
playhouse  to  playhouse ;  and  in  the  middle  way 
of  his  career  a  drenching  in  a  rain-storm,  after 
a  burning  day,  had  made  his  throat  mute  and 
closed  his  singing  life  forever.  He  had  returned 
to  his  birthplace,  and  there  joining  the  Miseri- 
cordia,  had  become  organist  and  sacristan  to 
then'  church  in  the  Lastra,  and  had  stayed  in 
those  offices  some  thirty  years,  and  now  was  over 
seventy ;  a  silent,  timid,  old  creature  usually,  but 
of  a  gentle  temper,  and  liking  nothing  better 
than  to  recall  the  days  of  his  wanderings  as  a 
singer,  or  to  linger  over  the  keys  of  his  old  organ 
with  some  world-forgotten  score  before  him. 


176  SIGNA. 


There  was  little  scope  for  his  fondness  for 
melody  in  the  Lastra.  It  was  only  in  Holy  Week 
that  he  could  arrange  any  choral  service  ;  or  once 
in  two  or  three  years,  perhaps,  there  would  come 
such  a  chance  for  him  as  he  had  had  on  that 
day  of  Corpus  Domini  when  the  bishop's  visit 
had  brought  about  an  unusual  greatness  of  cere- 
monial. 

At  all  other  times  all  he  could  ever  do  was  to 
play  a  few  symphonies  or  fugues  at  high  mass, 
-and  if  any  village  child  had  a  great  turn  for 
melody,  teach  it  the  little  science  that  he  knew, 
as  he  taught  Signa ;  Signa  who  was  so  docile  a 
pupil  that  he  would  have  knelt  in  happy  obedience 
to  the  whip  which  S.  Gregory  bought  for  his 
scholars — only  he  never  would  have  merited  it 
for  the  transgression  of  singing  out  of  time. 

The  stillness,  the  sadness,  the  seclusion,  where 
no  sound  came  unless  it  were  some  tolling  bell 
upon  the  hills,  the  melancholy  associations  of 
the  place,  which  all  spoke  of  pain,  of  effort,  of 
sorrow,  of  the  needs  of  the  poor,  and  of  the 
warnings  of  the  grave,  all  these  fostered  the 
dreamful  temper  of  the  boy,  and  the  thoughtful- 


SIGNA.  177 


ness  which  was  beyond  his  j^ears ;  and  he  passed 
many  a  happy  tranquil  hour  listening  to  the  old 
man  playing,  or  tr}ing  to  reproduce  upon  his 
lute,  as  best  he  might,  themes  of  the  musicians 
of  earher  generations — from  the  fugues  of  Merula 
— from  the  airs  of  Zingarelli — from  the  Stabat 
Mater  of  Jesi — from  the  Bened ictus  of  Jomelli — 
from  the  Credo  of  Perez — from  the  Cantata  of 
Porpora — knowing  nothing  of  their  names  or 
value,  but  finding  out  their  melodies  and  mean- 
ings by  sheer  instinct. 

Luigi  Dini — whom  everyone  called  Gigi — had 
many  a  crabbed  old  score  and  fine  sonata  and 
cantata  copied  out  by  his  own  hands,  and  the 
child,  having  been  taught  his  notes,  had  grown 
able  to  find  his  way  in  this  labjTinth,  and  pick 
out  beautiful  things  from  the  dust  of  ages  by 
ear  and  instinct,  and  make  them  all  his  own, 
as  love  appropriates  whatever  it  worships  ;  and 
never  knew,  as  he  went  over  the  stones  of  the 
Lastra  with  the  donkey,  and  woke  the  people 
in  their  beds  with  his  clear  voice,  w^hilst  all 
was  dark,  and  only  he  and  the  bii'ds  were 
astir,  that  when   he    was   singing   the    great  Se 

VOL.    1.  N 


178  SIGNA. 


circa,  se  dice,  or  the  mighty  Misero  pargoletto, 
or  the  delicious  Quelli-ld,  or  the  tender  Deh 
signore  !  he  was  giving  out  to  the  silent  street, 
and  the  dreaming  echoes,  and  the  wakening  flush 
of  day,  airs  that  had  heen  the  rapture  of  the 
listening  world  a  century  before. 

Grave  Gregorian  melodies ;  Laudi  of  the 
Florentine  laudisti  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  hymns 
from  the  monasteries,  modelled  on  the  old  Greek 
traditions,  with  "  the  note  the  slave  of  the  word  ;  " 
all  things  simple,  pure,  and  old  filled  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  sacristy  like  antique  jewels.  Signa, 
very  little,  very  ignorant,  very  helpless,  strayed 
amongst  them  confused  and  unconscious  of  the 
value  of  the  things  he  played  with,  and  yet  got 
the  good  out  of  them  and  felt  their  richness  and 
was  nourished  on  the  strength  of  them,  and  ran 
away  to  them  at  every  stolen  moment  that  he 
could,  while  Luigi  Dini  stood  by  and  listened, 
and  was  moved  at  the  wonderful  instinct  of  the 
child,  as  the  Eomans  were  moved  at  the  young 
Mozart's  rendering  of  the  AUegri  requiem. 

Music  was  in  the  heart  and  the  brain  of  the 
child ;  his  feet  moved  to  it  over  the  dusty  roads, 


SIGNA.  179 


his  heavy  burdens  were  lightened  by  it,  and, 
when  they  scolded  him,  often  he  did  not  hear — 
there  were  so  many  voices  singing  to  him. 
Where  did  the  voices  come  from  ?  he  did  not 
know ;  only  he  heard  them  when  he  lay  awake 
in  the  straw,  beside  the  other  boys,  with  the 
stars  shining  through  the  ungiazed  window  of 
the  roof,  as  he  heard  them  when  the  hot  noon 
was  bright  and  still  on  the  hill-top  where  he 
strayed  all  alone  with  his  sheep. 

One  day  he  found  the  magical  voices  shut  up 
in  a  little  brown  prison  of  wood,  as  a  great  soul  ere 
now  has  been  pent  in  a  mean  little  body ; — one 
day,  a  wonderful  day,  after  which  all  the  world 
changed  for  him. 

In  a  Httle  shop  in  the  Lastra  by  the  Porta 
Fiorentina,  there  was  a  violin  for  sale.  A  violin 
in  pear- wood,  with  a  shell  inlaid  upon  its  case, 
and  reputed  to  be  very,  very  old. 

Tonino,  the  locksmith  and  tinman,  had  it.  So 
many  years  before  that  he  could  not  count  them 
a  lodger  had  left  it  with  him  in  default  of  rent, 
and  never  had  gone  back  for  it.  The  violin  lay 
neglected  in  the  dust  of  an  old  cupboard.     One 

N  2 


180  SIGN  A. 


day  a  pedlar  had  spied  it  and  offered  ten  francs 
for  it.  Tonino  said  to  himself,  if  a  pedlar  would 
give  that,  it  must  be  worth  four  times  the  sum  at 
least,  and  put  it  in  his  window  with  his  old  keys 
and  his  new  saucepans,  and  his  ancient  locks  and 
his  spick  and  span  bright  coffee  pots ;  a  little 
old  dusk}^  window  just  within  the  tall  east  gate- 
way of  the  Lastra,  where  the  great  poplars  throw 
their  welcome  shadow  across  the  sunny  road. 

Signa  going  on  an  errand  there  one  day  and 
left  alone  in  the  shop  took  it  up  and  began 
to  make  the  strings  sound,  not  knowing  how, 
but  finding  the  music  out  for  himself  as 
the  young  Pascal  found  the  science  of  mathe- 
matics. 

When  Tonino  entered  his  workshop,  with  a 
pair  of  hot  pincers  in  his  hand,  he  was  frightened 
to  death  to  hear  the  sweetest  sounds  dancing 
about  the  air  like  butterflies,  and  when  he 
discovered  that  the  child  was  playing  on  his 
.precious  violin  that  the  pedlar  would  have 
given  ten  francs  for,  he  hardly  knew  whether  to 
kiss  the  child  for  being  so  clever  or  whether  to 
pinch  him  with  the  red-hot  nippers  for  his  im- 


SIGNA.  181 


pudence.  Anyhow  he  snatched  the  violin  from 
him  and  put^it  in  the  window  again. 

A  thing  that  could  make  so  sweet  a  noise  must 
be  worth  double  what  he  thought. 

So  he  put  a  price  of  forty  francs  upon  it, 
and  stuck  it  amongst  his  tins,  hoping  to  sell 
it ;  dealers  or  gentlefolks  came  sometimes  up 
and  down  the  Lastra,  seeing  if  there  were  any 
pretty  or  ancient  thing  to  buy,  for  the  people 
have  beautiful  old  work  very  often  in  lace,  in 
majolica,  in  canings,  in  missals,  in  rejjousse, 
in  copper,  and  can  be  cheated  out  of  these 
with  an  ease  that  quite  endears  them  to  those 
who  do  it. 

A  few  people  looked  at  Tonino's  viohn,  but 
no  one  bought  it ;  because  the  right  peoj)le  did 
not  see  it,  or  because  it  was  an  old  violin  without 
any  special  grace  of  Cremona  or  value  of  Bologna 
on  its  case.  As  it  lay  there  in  the  window  amongst 
the  rusty  iron  and  the  shining  tin  things,  with 
the  dust  drifting  over  it,  and  the  flies  buzzing 
about  its  strings,  Signa  saw  it  twenty  times  a 
w^eek,  and  sighed  his  little  soul  out  for  it. 

Oh  the  unutterable  wonder  locked  up  in  that 


182  SIGN  A. 


pear- wood  ca^e  !    oh,  the  deep  undreamed-of  joys 
that  lay  in  those  mute  strings  ! 

The  child  thought  of  nothing  else.  After 
those  murmurs  of  marvellous  meanings  that  had 
come  to  him  when  touching  that  strange  thing, 
he  dreamed  of  it  hy  day  and  night.  The  lute 
was  dear  to  him ;  hut  what  was  the  power  of 
the  lute  heside  those  heights  and  depths  of  sound 
that  this  unknown  creature  could  give? — for  a 
living  creature  it  was  to  him,  as  much  as  was  the 
redbreast  or  thrush. 

Only  to  touch  it  again  !  just  once  to  touch  it 
again ! 

He  begged  and  prayed  Tonino ;  but  the  tin- 
man was  inexorable.  He  could  not  risk  his  bit 
of  property  in  such  babyish  hands.  True  the 
child  had  made  the  music  jump  out  of  it ;  but  that 
might  have  been  an  accident,  and  who  could  tell 
that  another  time  he  would  not  break  it — a  little 
beggar's  brat  like  that,  without  people  to  pay  for 
it  if  any  damage  were  done. 

"  Give  me  my  forty  francs  and  you  shall 
have  it,  piccinino,"  Tonino  would  say  with 
a  grin,  knowing  that  he  might  as  well  tell  the 


SIGNA.  183 


child  to  bring  him  down  the  star-dust  from  the 

skies. 

Signa  would  go  away  with  his  Httle  head  hung 
down ;  the  longing  for  the  violin  possessing  him 
with  a  one-idea'd  passion.  In  the  young  child  with 
whom  genius  is  born  its  vague  tumultuous  desires 
work  without  his  knowing  what  it  is  that  ails  him. 
The  children  laughed  at  him,  the  old  people 
scolded  him,  Nita  beat  him,  Bnmo  even  grew  impa- 
tient with  him  because  he  was  always  sighing  for  an 
old  fiddle,  that  it  was  as  absm'd  for  him  to  dream 
of  as  if  it  were  a  king's  sword  or  a  queen's  pearls. 
"  As  if  he  were  not  lazy  and  tiresome  enough 
as  it  is  !  "  said  Nita,  boxing  his  ears  soundly, 
when  she  went  by  one  evening  and  caught  him 
leaning  against  Tonino's  casement,  and  looking 
with  longing,  pitiful,  ardent  eyes  at  the  treasure 
in  its  pear-wood  shell. 

After  a  time  the  child,  shy  and  proud  in  temper, 
grew  ashamed  of  liis  own  enthusiasm,  and  hid 

o 

it  from  the  others,  and  never  any  more  tried  to 
soften  Tonino's  heart  and  get  leave  to  touch  that 
magical  bow  again. 

Bruno  thought  he   had  forgotten  it  and  was 


184  SIGNA. 


glad.  The  violin  lay  with  the  metal  pots  and  the 
rusty  locks,  and  no  one  hought  it.  Signa  when 
he  had  to  go  past,  on  an  errand  through  the  gate, 
to  .Castagnolo  or  S.  Maria  del  Greve,  or  any  other 
eastward  village,  tried  not  to  look  at  the  brown 
shining  wood  that  the  wasps  and  the  mosquitoes 
were  humming  over  at  their  will.  But  he  longed 
for  it  the  more  because  he  kept  the  longing  silent, 
and  had  no  chance  of  ever  feeling  those  keys  of 
enchantment  under  his  little  fingers.  A  thing 
repressed,  grows. 

He  would  lie  awake  at  night  thinking  of  the 
violin;  if  it  had  not  been  so  wicked  he  would 
have  stolen  something  to  buy  it  with  ;  some  days 
it  was  all  he  could  do  to  keep  himself  from  steal- 
ing it  itself. 

One  bright  afternoon  in  especial,  when  every- 
one was  at  a  marionnette  show  in  the  square, 
and  he  had  come  back  very  foot-sore  from 
the  city,  and  passing  saw  Tonino's  place  was 
empty  and  the  old  lattice  window  was  open  and 
the  sun's  rays  fell  across  the  violin,  it  would 
have  been  the  work  of  a  second  to  put  his  hand 
in,  and  draw  it  out,  and  run  off — anywhere — any- 


f^IGNA.  185 


where,  what  wouhl   it  have  mattered  where,   if 
only  he  had  carried  all  that  music  with  him  ? 

For  genius  is  fanaticism ;  and  the  little  bare- 
foot hungry  fellow,  running  errands  in  the  dust, 
had  genius  in  him,  and  was  tossed  about  by  it 
like  a  small  moth  by  a  storm. 

To  run  away  and  wander,  with  the  violin  to 
talk  to  him  wherever  he  might  go  : — the  longing 
to  do  this  tortured  him  so  that  he  clasped  his 
hands  over  his  eyes  and  fled — without  it — as  fast 
as  his  feet  could  take  him. 

To  see  it  lying  dumb  when  at  a  touch  it 
would  say  such  beautiful  things  to  him! — he  ran 
on  through  the  gateway  and  down  the  road  with 
the  burning  temptation  pursuing  him  as  prairie 
flames  a  frightened  fawn. 

If  anyone  had  had  it  who  could  have  made  it 
speak  he  would  not  have  minded ;  but  that  it  should 
lie  mute  there — useless — lost — hurt  him  with  a 
sharper  pain  than  Nita's  hazel  rods  could  deal. 

"  Oh  Gemma — almost  I  stole  it !"  he  gasped, 
panting  and  breathless  with  the  horror  of  him- 
self, as  he  stumbled  up  against  the  pretty  child 
on  the  green  strip  that  runs  under  the  old  south 


186  SIGNA. 


wall,  where  the  breaches  made  by  the  Spanish 
assaults  are  filled  in  with  ivy,  and  the  ropemakers 
walk  to  and  fro,  weaving  their  strands  under  the 
ruined  bastions. 

Gemma  put  her  finger  in  her  mouth  and  looked 
at  him. 

"Why  not  quite?"  she  said.  Gemma  had 
stolen  many  things  in  her  day,  and  had  always 
been  forgiven  because  she  was  so  pretty. 

"  Oh,  Gemma,  I  did — so  nearly ! "  he  murmured, 
unheeding  her  answer  in  the  confusion  of  his 
own  new  stricken  sense  of  peril  and  escape. 

"  Was  it  to  eat  ?  "  said  Gemma. 

"To  eat?'' 

He  echoed  her  words  without  knowing  what 
he  said.  Two  great  tears  were  rolling  down  his 
cheeks.  He  was  so  grateful  that  strength  for 
resistance  had  been  given  him  ;  and  yet,  he  was 
thinking  of  a  song*  of  the  country  to  a  lute ;  which 

*  Oh  quanto  suoni  bene  chitarruzza  ! 
Le  tui  corde  si  possono  indorare  ! 
Lo  manico  diventi  una  fanciulla  ! 
E  dove  io  vada  ti  posso  menare 
Ch'  io  ti  posso  menar  da  qui  a  Roma 
E  monti  e  sassi  t  'abbiano  a  incbinare  ! 

Tuscan  Serenade. 


SIGNA.  187 


sings  of  how  its  owner  would  gild  its  strings  and 
wander  with  it  even  as  far  as  Rome — mountains 
and  rocks  inclining  before  its  silver  sounds. 

If  only  he  could  have  that  beautiful  strange 
thing,  he  thought,  how  he  would  roam  the  world 
over  fearing  nothing,  or  how  happy  he  would 
lie  down  among  the  sheep  and  the  pines,  for  ever 
makmg  music  to  the  winds. 

*'  Why  did  you  not  take  it,  if  nobody  was  by 
to  see,"  said  Gemma. 

"  Oh  dear,  it  is  wicked  to  thieve,"  said  Signa, 
drearily.     "Wicked,  you  know,  and  mean." 

Gemma  put  out  her  lower  lip. 

"  If  no  one  know,  it  is  all  right,"  she  said,  with 
accurate  perception  of  the  world's  standard  of 
virtue. 

Signa  sighed  heavily,  his  head  hung  down  ;  he 
hardly  heard  her  ;  he  was  thinking  of  the  viohn. 

**  You  are  a  mammamia,"  said  Gemma,  with 
calm  scorn,  meaning  he  was  a  baby  and  very  silly. 
"  When  I  wish  to  do  a  thing,  I  do  it." 

"  But  you  do  very  wrong  things  sometimes.'' 

Gemma  shrugged  her  little  white  shoulders  up 
to  her  ears. 


188  SIGNA. 


"  It  is  nice  to  do  wrong,"  she  said,  placidly. 

"  They  sa?/ things  are  wrong  you  know,"  she 
added,  after  a  pause.  "  But  that  is  only  to  keep 
us  quiet.     It  is  all  words." 

They  called  her  stupid,  but  she  noticed  many 
facts  and  drew  many  conclusions.  This  was  one 
of  them ;  and  it  was  ahke  agreeable  to  her  and 
useful.  She  was  a  naughty  child,  but  was  naughty 
vdth  logic  and  success. 

''If  only  he  would  let  me  touch  it  once," 
murmured  Signa. 

Gemma  finding  him  such  bad  company  went 
away  hopping  on  one  foot,  and  wondering  wh}^ 
boys  were  such  silly  creatures. 

"  What  is  the  matter?"  said  one  of  the  rope- 
makers  kindly  to  the  boy.  "Do  you  want  to  see 
the  puppet  show  that  came  m  this  morning? 
Here  is  a  copper  bit  if  you  do." 

Signa  put  his  hands  behind  his  back. 

"Oh  no,  it  is  not  that.  You  are  ver}"  good, 
but  it  is  not  that." 

"  Take  what  you  can  get  another  time,"  said 
the  ropemaker,  offended  and  yet  glad  that  his 
too  generous  offer  had  been  repulsed  by  him. 


SIGN  A.  189 


*'  What  an  ass  you  are  !  The  x^uppets  are 
splendid,"  hissed  Toto,  who  was  near,  and  who 
had  spent  an  hour  in  the  forenoon,  squeezed  be- 
tween the  tent-pegs  of  the  forbidden  paradise,  flat 
on  his  stomach,  swallowing  the  dust.  "  They 
are  half  an  arm's  length  high,  and  there  are  three 
kings  in  it,  and  the}^  murder  one  another  just 
like  life — so  beautiful !  You  might  have  taken 
the  money,  sm^ely,  and  given  it  to  me.  I  shall  tell 
mother ;  see  then  if  you  get  any  fritters  for  a 
week !  " 

**  I  did  not  want  to  see  the  puppets,"  said 
Signa,  wearily,  and  walked  away. 

It  was  late  in  the  day ;  he  had  worked  hard, 
running  into  the  city  and  back  on  an  errand  ;  he 
was  tired  and  listless  and  unhappy. 

As  he  went  thinking  of  the  violin  by  the  walls, 
not  noticing  where  his  steps  took  him,  he  passed 
a  little  group  of  strangers.  They  were  travellers 
who  had  wandered  out  there  for  the  day.  One  of 
them  was  reading  in  a  book,  and  looked  up  as 
the  child  passed. 

"  What  a  pity  the  Lastra  is  forgotten  by  the 
world!"  the  reader  said  to  his  companions;  he 


190  SIGNA. 


was  thinking  of  the  many  memories  which  the 
old  castello  shuts  within  her  walls  as  manu- 
scripts are  shut  in  coffers. 

Signa  heard ;  and  flushed  with  pain  up  to  the 
curls  of  his  flying  hair. 

He  said  nothing,  for  he  was  shy,  and,  besides, 
was  never  very  sure  that  people  would  not  take 
him  to  Nita  for  a  thrashing ;  they  so  often  did. 
But  he  went  on  his  way  with  a  swelling  heart. 
It  hurt  him  like  a  blow.  To  others  it  was  only 
a  small,  ancient,  desolate  place  filled  with  j)Oor 
people,  but  to  him  it  was  as  Zion  to  the  Hebrew 
children. 

*'  If  I  could  be  very  great,  if  I  could  write 
beautiful  things  as  Pergolesi  did,  and  all  the 
world  heard  them  and  treasured  them,  then 
praising  me,  they  would  remember  the  Lastra," 
he  thought. 

A  dim,  sweet,  impossible  ambition  entered 
into  him,  for  the  first  time ;  the  ambition  of 
a  child,  gorgeous  and  vague,  and  out  of  all 
realms  of  likelihood;  visions  all  full  of  gold 
and  colour,  with  no  perspective  or  reality  about 
them,   like   a  picture   of   the   twelfth    century, 


SIGNA.  191 


in  which  he  saw  himself,  a  man  grown,  laurel- 
crowned  and  white-robed,  brought  into  the 
Lastra,  as  the  old  Sacristan  told  him  Petrarca 
was  taken  into  Rome  ;  with  the  rays  of  the  sun 
of  his  fame  gilding  its  ancient  ways,  whilst  all 
Italy  chanted  his  melodies  and  all  the  earth 
echoed  his  name. 

"  If  I  could  but  be  what  Pergolesi  was  !  "  he 
thought. 

Pergolesi  who  consumed  his  soul  in  high  endea- 
vour, and  died,  at  five-and-twenty,  of  a  broken  heart ! 
But  then  he  knew  nothmg  of  that ;  he  only 
knew  that  Pergolesi  was  a  great  dead  creature, 
whose  name  was  written  on  the  scores  of  the 
Stabat  and  the  Salve  Regina  which  he  loved 
as  he  loved  the  roll  of  thunder  and  the  rose 
of  sunrise  ;  and  he  knew  that  it  was  he  who 
had  written  that  "  Se  circa  se  dice,''  which  he 
had  learned  in  the  dusky  organ-loft  of  the  Mise- 
ricordia ;  that  song  in  which  the  great  poet 
and  the  great  musician  together  poured  forth  the 
passion  of  a  divine  despair,  the  passion  which,  in 
its  deepest  woe  and  highest  pain,  thinks  but  of 
saving  the  creature  that  it  suffers  for  : 


192  SIGNA. 


' '  All  no  !  si  gran  duolo 
Non  darle  per  me  !  " 

He  did  not  know  anything  about  him,  but 
looked  up  at  the  sun,  which  was  sinking  downward 
faintly  in  the  dreamy  warmth  of  the  pale  green 
west,  and  wondered  where  Pergolesi  was,  beyond 
those  realms  of  light,  those  beams  of  glory  ? 

Was  he  chanting  the  Salve  Kegina  there  ? 

Between  him  and  the  radiance  of  the  setting 
sun  stood  the  little  figure  of  Gemma,  her  hair  all 
aflame  with  the  light;  hair  like  Titian's  Magdalen 
and  Slave  and  Venus,  like  the  hair  that  Bron- 
zino  has  given  to  the  Angel  who  brings  the 
tidings  of  the  Annunciation,  carrying  the  spray 
of  lilies  in  his  hand. 

^'  Oh,  you  mammamia !  "  she  cried,  in  derision, 
stopping  short,  with  her  brown  little  sister  bowed 
down  beside  her  under  the  weight  of  some  earthen 
pots  that  they  had  been  sent  to  buy  in  the 
Lastra. 

*' Oh,  you  mammamia!"  cried  Gemma,  munch- 
ing a  S.  Michael's  summer  pear  that  some  one 
had  given  her  in  the  Lastra  for  the  sake  of  her 
pretty  little  round  face  with  its  angelic  eyes. 


SIGN  A.  193 


Signa  took  Palma's  flower-pots  on  his  own 
back,  and  smiled  back  at  Gemma. 

"I  have  nothing  to  do  before  bedtime,"  he 
said  :  "  I  will  carry  these  up  for  you." 

"And  then  we  can  play  in  the  garden,"  said 
Gemma,  jumping  off  her  rosy  feet  as  she  finished 
the  pear.  "  But  what  were  you  thinking  of? 
staring  at  the  clouds  ?  " 

*'  Of  a  dead  man  that  was  a  very  great  man, 
dear,  I  think,  and  made  beautiful  music." 

"  Only  that !  "  said  Gemma,  with  a  pout  of 
her  pretty  lips  ;  throwing  away  her  pear  stalk. 

"  Tell  me  about  him,"  said  Palma. 

"  I  do  not  know  anything,"  said  Signa,  sadly. 
*'  He  has  left  half  his  soul  in  the  music  and  the 
other  half  must  be — there." 

He  looked  up  again  into  the  west. 

The  two  little  girls  walked  along  in  the  dust, 
one  on  each  side  of  him ;  Palma  wished  he 
would  not  think  so  of  dead  people;  Gemma 
was  pondering  on  the  veiled  glories  of  the 
puppets,  of  whose  exploits  Toto  had  told  her 
marvels. 

"  Oh,  Signa  !  if  we  could  only  see  the  burat- 

VOL.    I,  o 


194  SIGNA. 


tinif  she  murmured,  as  they  trotted  onward; 
she  had  been  sighing  her  heart  out  before  the 
tent. 

"  The  buratti7ii?  "  said  Signa.  "  Yes.  Gian 
Lambrochini  would  have  given  me  the  money  to 
go  ;  but  I  would  as  soon  hear  the  geese  hiss  or 
the  frogs  croak." 

"  You  might  have  gone  in — really  in  ? — and 
seen  them,  murders  and  all?  "  said  Gemma,  with 
wide-opened  eyes  of  amazement. 

"  Yes." 

"  Money  to  go  in  ! — to  go  in  ! — And  you  did 
not  take  the  money  even  !  " 

"  No  ;  I  did  not  wish  to  go." 

"  But  you  might  have  given  it  to  me  !  /might 
have  gone  !  " 

The  enormity  of  her  loss  and  of  his  folly  over- 
came her.  She  stood  in  the  road  and  stared 
blankly  at  him. 

"  That  would  not  have  been  fair  to  the  Lam- 
brochini,'^ said  Palma,  who  was  a  sturdy  little 
maiden  as  to  right  and  wrong. 

"  No — and  he  so  poor  himself,  and  so  old  !  " 
said  Signa.     "It  would  not  have  fair,  Gemma." 


SIGNA.  195 


"  If  you  were  fond  of  me,  would  you  think  of 
what  was  *  fan*  ?  '  You  woukl  think  of  amusing 
me.  It  is  a  shame  of  3^ou,  Signa — a  bm-ning 
shame  !  And  longing  to  see  those  puppets  as  I 
have  done — crying  my  eyes  out  before  the  tent  ! 
It  is  wicked." 

"  Dear,  I  am  sorry,"  murmured  Signa.  "  But, 
indeed — indeed,  I  never  thought  of  you." 

"  And  never  thought  of  all  you  might  have  got 
with  the  money  !  " 

Gemma  twisted  herself  on  one  side,  putting  up 
her  plump  little  shoulders,  sullenly,  into  her  ears, 
with  a  scowl  on  her  face. 

It  cost  a  whole  coin — ten  centimes — to  go  in 
to  even  the  cheapest  standing-places  in  the 
theatre,  and  with  a  whole  coin  you  could  get  a 
big  round  sweet  cake  for  five  centimes,  and  for 
another  centime  a  handful  of  melon-seeds,  and 
for  another  a  bit  of  chocolate,  and  for  another 
two  figs,  and  for  the  fourth  and  fifth  and  last  a 
painted  saint  in  sugar.  And  he  might  have 
brought  all  those  treasures  to  her ! 

Gemma,  between  her  two  companions,  felt  tlie 
immeasurable    disdain   of  the  practical    intelli- 

0  2 


196  SIGNA. 


gence  for  the  idle  dreamer  and  the  hypercritical 
moralist.  She  trotted  on  in  the  dust  sulkily  ;  a 
little  rosy  and  auburn  figure  in  the  shadows,  as 
if  she  were  a  Botticelli  cherub  put  into  life  and 
motion. 

**  You  are  cross,  dear !  "  said  Signa,  with  a 
sigh,  putting  his  hand  round  her  throat  to  caress 
her  back  into  content.  But  Gemma  shook  him  off, 
and  trotted  on  alone  in  outraged  dignity. 

They  climbed  the  steep  ascent  of  grassy  and 
broken  ground  past  the  parish  church,  with  the 
sombre  convent  above  amongst  its  C3^presses, 
and  the  wilder  hills  with  their  low  woodland 
growth  green  and  dark  and  fresh  against  the 
south,  and  then  entered  the  great  gardens  of 
Giovoli,  where  Sandro  Zanobetto  worked  all  the 
years  of  his  life  amongst  the  lemons  and  mag- 
nolia trees. 

The  villa  was  uninhabited ;  but  the  gardens 
were  cultivated  by  its  owner,  and  the  flowers  and 
fruits  were  sent  into  the  city  market,  and  in  the 
winter  down  to  Eome. 

"  Are  you  cross  still,  Gemma  ?  "  said  Signa, 
when  he  had  put  the  big  pots  down  in  the  tool- 


SIGN  A.  Wi 


house.     Gemma  glanced  at  him  with  her  fore- 
finger in  her  mouth. 

"  Will  you  play  ?  What  shall  we  play  at  ?  " 
said  Signa,  coaxingly.  "  Come  !  It  shall  he 
anything  you  like  to  choose.  Palma  does  not 
mind." 

Gemma  took  her  finger  out  of  her  mouth  and 
pointed  to  some  Alexandrian  apricots  golden  and 
round  against  the  high  wall  opposite  them. 

"  Get  me  four  big  ones  and  I  will  play." 

"  Oh,  Gemma  !  "  cried  Palma,  piteously. 
"  Those  are  the  very  best,  the  Alexandrian  S. 
Johns  for  the  padrone  !  " 

*'  I  know,"  said  Gemma. 

"  But  the  fattore  counted  them  this  very 
morning  and  knows  every  one  there  is,  and  will 
blame  father  if  one  be  gone,  and  father  will  beat 
Signa  or  make  Nita  beat  him  !  " 

"  Besides,  it  is  stealing,  Gemma,"  said 
Signa. 

"  Che  !  "  said  little  Gemma,  with  unmeasured 
scorn.     *'  You  can  climb  there,  Signa?  " 

"Yes,  I  can  climb;  but  you  do  not  wish  me 
to  do  wrong  to  please  you,  dear?" 


198  SIGNA. 


"  Yes,  I  do,  "  said  Gemma. 

"  Oh,  Gemma,  then  I  cannot !  "  murmured 
Signa,  sadly.  ''  If  it  were  only  myself — but  it  is 
wrong,  dear,  and  your  father  would  be  blamed. 
Palma  is  right." 

"  Che  !  "  said  Gemma,  again,  with  her  little 
red  mouth  thrust  out.  "  Will  you  go  and  get 
them,  Signa  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Signa. 

"  Tista  !  "  cried  Gemma,  with  her  sweetest 
little  chirp,  and  flew  through  the  twilight  fragrance. 
"  Tista  !  Tista !  Tista  !  " 

Tista  was  Giovanni  Baptista,  the  twelve-year- 
old  son  of  a  fellow-labourer  of  Giovoli,  who  lived 
on  the  other  side  of  the  wall ;  a  big  brown  boy, 
who  was  her  slave. 

Signa  ran  after  her. 

"  No,  No  !     Gemma,  come  back !  " 

Gemma  glanced  over  her  shoulder. 

"  Tista  will  get  them,  and  he  will  swing  me  in 
the  big  trees  afterwards." 

"  No  !  Gemma,  listen — come  back !  Gemma 
— listen  ;  I  will  get  them." 

Gemma  stood  still,  and  laughed. 


SIGNA.  199 


''  Get  tliem  first,  then  I  will  come  back;  but 
Tista  will  do  as  well  as  you.  And  he  swings  me 
better.     He  is  bigger." 

Signa  climbed  up  the  wall,  bruising  his  arms 
and  wounding  his  feet,  for  the  stones  of  it  were 
sharp,  and  there  was  hardly  any  foothold ;  but, 
with  some  effort  he  got  the  apricots  and  dropped 
to  the  ground  with  them,  and  ran  to  Gemma. 

"  Here  !  Now  you  will  not  go  to  Tista  ?  But, 
oh.  Gemma,  why  make  me  do  such  a  thing  ?  It 
is  a  wrong  thing — it  is  very  wrong  !  " 

"  I  did  not  make  you  do  anything,"  said 
Gemma,  receiving  the  fruit  into  her  skirt.  "  I 
did  not  make  you.  I  said  Tista  would  do  as 
well." 

Signa  was  silent. 

She  did  not  even  thank  him.  She  did  not 
even  offer  to  share  the  spoils.  He  was  no 
nearer  her  good  graces  than  he  had  been  before 
he  had  sinned  to  please  her. 

"Oh,  Signa!  I  never,  never  would  have  be- 
lieved !  "  murmured  Palma,  ready  to  cry,  and 
powerless  to  act. 

'*  She  wished  it  so.     She  would  have  gone  to 


200  SIGN  A. 


Tista,"  said  Signa,  and  stood  and  watched  the 
little  child  eating  the  fruit  with  all  the  pretty 
pecking  ardour  of  a  chaffinch.  Gemma  laughed 
as  she  sat  down  upon  the  grass  to  enjoy  her 
stolen  goods  at  fuller  ease.  When  she  had  got 
her  own  way,  all  her  good-humour  returned. 

"  What  sillies  you  are  !  "  she  said,  looking  at 
the  tearful  eye  of  her  sister,  and  at  Signa  stand- 
ing silent  in  the  shade. 

**  It  is  you  who  are  cruel,  Gemma,"  said  Palma, 
and  went,  with  her  little  hlack  head  hung  down, 
into  the  house,  because,  though  she  was  only 
ten  years  old,  she  was  the  mistress  of  it,  and 
had  to  cook  and  sweep  and  wash,  and  hoe  the 
cabbages  and  bake  the  bread,  or  else  the  floors 
remained  filthy  and  the  hungry  boys  shirtless 
and  unfed. 

Gemma  did  not  know  that  she  was  cruel.  She 
was  anything  that  served  her  pm-pose  best  and 
brought  her  the  most  pleasure — that  was  all. 

She  ate  her  apricots  with  the  glee  of  a  little 
mouse  eating  a  bit  of  cheese.  Signa  watched 
her.     It  was  all  the  recompense  he  had. 

He   knew  that  he  had  been  weak,   and   had 


SIGNA.  201 


done  wrong,  because  the  fruit  trees  were  under 
Sandro's  charge,  who  had  no  right  to  any  of  it, 
being  a  man  paid  by  the  week,  and  without  any 
share  in  what  he  helped  to  cultivate  ;  and  this 
on  the  south  wall  being  the  very  choicest  of  it 
all,  Sandro  had  threatened  his  children  with  dire 
punishment  if  they  should  dare  even  to  touch 
what  should  fall. 

When  she  had  eaten  the  last  one.  Gemma 
jumped  up.     Signa  caught  her. 

"You  will  kiss  me  now,  and  come  and  play  ? 
There  is  just  half  an  hour." 

But  Gemma  twisted  herself  away,  laughing  glee- 
fully. 

"  No  ;  I  shall  go  and  swing  with  Tista." 

*'  Oh,  Gemma  !  when  you  promised " 

"  I  never  promised,"  said  Gemma. 

"  You  said  you  would  come  back." 

Gemma  laughed  her  merriest  at  his  face  of 
astonished  reproach. 

"  I  did  come  back ;  but  I  am  going  again. 
Tista  swings  better  than  you." 

And  with  her  little  carols  of  laughter  rippling 
away   among    the   leaves.    Gemma   ran    off  and 


202  8IGNA. 


darted  through  a  low  door  and  banged  it  behind 
her,  and  called  aloud  : 

''  Tista  !  Tista  !     Come  and  swing  me  !  " 

In  a  few  moments  on  the  other  side  above 
the  wall  her  little  body  curled  upon  the  rope,  and 
her  sunny  head,  as  yellow  as  a  marigold,  were 
seen  flying  in  a  semicircle  up  into  the  boughs 
of  the  high  magnolia  trees,  while  she  laughed 
on  and  called  louder  : 

"  Higher,  higher,  Tista !— higher  !  " 

Signa  could  see  her,  and  could  hear — that  was 
all  the  reward  he  had. 

He  sat  down  disconsolate  near  the  old  broken 
statue  by  the  water-lilies. 

He  was  too  proud  to  follow  her  and  to  dispute 
with  Tista. 

"  I  will  not  waste  another  hour  on  her — ever ! " 
he  thought,  with  bitterness  in  his  heart.  There 
were  the  lute  and  the  music  in  the  quiet  sacristy ; 
and  old  fragrant  silent  hills  so  full  of  dreams  for 
him;  and  Bruno,  who  loved  him  and  never 
cheated  him ;  and  the  nightingales  that  told 
him  a  thousand  stories  of  their  lives  amongst 
the  myrtles ;  and  the  stones  of  the  Lastra  that 


SIGNA.  203 


had  the  tales  of  the  great  dead  written  on  them  : — 
when  he  had  all  these,  why  should  he  waste 
his  few  spare  precious  minutes  on  this  faithless, 
saucy,  sulky,  ungrateful  little  child  ? 

His  heart  was  very  heavy  as  he  heard  her 
laughter.  She  had  made  him  do  wrong,  and 
tlien  had  mocked  at  him  and  left  him. 

"  I  will  never  think  ahout  her,  never  anj- 
more ! "  he  said  to  himself  while  the  shadows 
darkened  and  the  hats  flew  out  and  the  glow- 
worms twinkled,  and  in  the  dusk  he  could  still 
just  see  the  golden  head  of  Gemma  flying  in  the 
bronzed  leaves  of  the  magnolias. 

After  a  while  her  laughter  and  her  swinging 
ceased. 

The  charm  of  perfect  silence  fell  on  the  grand 
old  garden.  He  sat  on,  soothed  and  yet  sorrowful. 
The  place  was  beautiful  to  him,  even  without 
Gemma. 

In  the  garden  of  these  children  all  the  flora 
of  Italy  was  gathered  and  was  growing. 

The  delights  of  an  Itahan  garden  are  count- 
less. It  is  not  like  any  other  garden  in  the 
world.      It  is  at   once   more  formal   and   more 


204  SIGNA. 


wild,  at  once  greener  with  more  abundant  youth 
and  venerable  with  more  antique  age.  It  has  all 
Boccaccio  between  its  walls,  all  Petrarca  in  its 
leaves,  all  Eaffaelle  in  its  skies.  And  then  the 
sunshine  that  beggars  words  and  laughs  at 
painters  !  —  the  boundless,  intense,  delicious, 
heavenly  light !  What  do  other  gardens  know 
of  that,  save  in  orange-groves  of  Granada  and 
rose-thickets  of  Damascus  ? 

The  old  broken  marble  statues,  whence  the 
water  dripped  and  fed  the  water-lily ;  the  great 
lemon-trees  in  pots  big  enough  to  drown  a  boy, 
the  golden  globes  among  their  emerald  leaves; 
the  magnolias,  like  trees  cast  in  bronze,  with 
all  the  spice  of  India  in  their  cups ;  the  spires  of 
ivory  bells  that  the  yuccas  put  forth,  like  belfries 
for  faii'ies ;  the  oleanders  taUer  than  a  man,  red 
and  white  and  blush  colour ;  the  broad  velvet 
leaves  of  the  flowering  rush  ;  the  dark  majestic 
ilex  oaks,  that  made  the  noon  like  twilight ;  the 
countless  graces  of  the  vast  family  of  acacias  ; 
the  high  box  hedges,  sweet  and  pungent  in  the 
sun ;  the  stone  ponds,  where  the  gold-fish  slept 
through  the  sultry  daj^ ;  the  wilderness  of  carna- 


SIGNA.  205 


tions;  the  huge  roses,  j-ellow,  crimson,  snow- 
white,  and  the  small  noisette  and  the  banksia 
with  its  million  of  pink  stars ;  myrtles  in  dense 
thickets,  and  camellias  like  a  wood  of  evergreens ; 
cacti  in  all  quaint  shapes,  like  fossils  astonished 
to  find  themselves  again  alive  ;  high  walls,  vine- 
hung  and  topped  by  pines  and  cypresses ;  low 
walls  with  crowds  of  geraniums  on  their  parapets, 
and  the  mountains  and  the  fields  beyond  them ; 
marble  basins  hidden  in  creepers  where  the  frogs 
dozed  all  day  long ;  sounds  of  convent  bells 
and  of  chapel  chimes ;  green  lizards  basking 
on  the  flags  ;  great  sheds  and  granaries  beautiful 
with  the  clematis  and  the  wisteria  and  the  rosy 
trumpets  of  the  bignonia ;  great  wooden  places 
cool  and  shady,  with  vast  arched  entrances,  and 
scent  of  hay,  and  empty  casks,  and  red  earthen 
amphorae,  and  little  mice  scudding  on  the 
floors,  and  a  sun-dial  painted  on  the  wall,  and 
a  crucifix  set  above  the  weathercock,  and  through 
the  huge  unglazed  windows  sight  of  the  gTeen 
vines  with  the  bullocks  in  the  harvest-carts 
beneath  them,  or  of  some  hilly  sunlit  road  with 
a  mule-team  coming  down  it,  or  of  a  blue  high 


206  SIGNA. 


hill  with  its  pine-trees  black  against  the  sky, 
and  on  its  slopes  the  yellow  corn  and  misty 
olive.  This  was  their  garden ;  it  is  ten  thousand 
other  gardens  in  the  land. 

The  old  painters  had  these  gardens,  and  walked 
in  them,  and  thought  nothing  better  could  be 
needed  for  any  scene  of  Annunciation  or  Adora- 
tion, and  so  put  them  in  beyond  the  windows  of 
Bethlehem  or  behind  the  Throne  of  the  Lamb — ' 
and  who  can  wonder  ? 

The  mighty  lives  have  passed  away  into  silence, 
leaving  no  likeness  to  them  on  earth  ;  but  if  you 
would  still  hold  communion  with  them,  even 
better  than  to  go  to  written  score  or  printed 
book  or  painted  panel  or  chiselled  marble  or 
cloistered  gloom,  is  it  to  stray  into  one  of  these 
old  quiet  gardens,  where  for  hundreds  of  years  the 
stone  naiad  has  leaned  over  the  fountain,  and 
the  golden  lizard  hidden  under  the  fallen  carya- 
tide,  and  sit  quite  still,  and  let  the  stones  tell 
you  what  they  remember  and  the  leaves  say 
what  the  sun  once  saw ;  and  then  the  shades  of 
the  great  dead  will  come  to  3'^ou.  Onl}^  you  must 
love  them  truly,  else  3^ou  will  see  them  never. 


SIGN  A.  207 


Signa,  in  his  little  ignorant  wa}^,  did  love  them 
with  just  such  blind  untaught  love  as  a  little 
bird  born  in  a  dark  cage  has  for  the  air  and  the 
Ught. 

When  he  stole  into  the  deserted  villas,  where, 
after  centuries  of  neglect,  some  fresco  would  glow 
still  upon  the  damp  walls  where  the  cobwebs  and 
the  wild  vine  had  their  way ;  when  he  saw  the 
sculptured  cornices  and  the  gilded  fretwork  and 
the  broken  mosaic  in  the  halls  where  cattle  were 
stabled  and  grain  piled;  when  he  knelt  down 
before  the  dusky  nameless  Madonnas  in  the 
little  churches  on  the  hills,  or  found  some  marble 
head  lying  amongst  the  wild  thyme,  the  boy's 
heart  moved  with  a  longing  and  a  tenderness  to 
which  he  could  have  given  no  title. 

As  passion  yet  unknown  thrills  in  the  adoles- 
cent, as  maternity  yet  undreamed  of  stirs  in  the 
maiden ;  so  the  love  of  art  comes  to  the  artist 
before  he  can  give  a  voice  to  his  thought  or 
any  name  to  his  desire. 

Signa  heard  "  beautiful  things  "  as  he  sat  in 
the  rising  moonlight,  with  the  bells  of  the  little 
bindweed  white  about  his  feet. 


208  SIGNA, 


That  was  all  lie  could  have  said. 

Whether  the  angels  sent  them  on  the  breeze, 
or  the  bmls  brought  them,  or  the  dead  men  came 
and  sang  them  to  him,  he  could  not  tell.  In- 
deed, who  can  tell  ? 

Where  did  Guido  see  the  golden  hair  of 
S.  Michael  gleam  upon  the  wind  ?  Where  did 
Mozart  hear  the  awful  cries  of  the  risen  dead 
come  to  judgment  ?  What  voice  was  in  the 
fountain  of  Vaucluse  ?  Under  what  nodding  oxlip 
did  Shakespeare  find  Titania  asleep  ?  When  did 
the  Mother  of  Love  come  down,  chaster  in  her 
unclothed  loveliness  than  vestal  in  her  veil,  and 
with  such  vision  of  her  make  obscure  Cleomenes 
immortal  ? 

Who  can  tell  ? 

Signa  sat  dreaming,  with  his  chin  upon  his 
hands,  and  his  eyes  wandering  over  all  the  silent 
place,  from  the  closed  flowers  at  his  feet  to  the 
moon  in  her  circles  of  mist. 

Who  walks  in  these  paths  now  may  go  back 
four  hundred  years.  They  are  changed  in  nothing. 
Through  their  high  hedges  of  rhododendron  and 
of  jessamine   that   grow  like  woodland  trees  it 


SIGNA.  209 


would  still  seem  but  natural  to  see  Raffaelle  with 
his  court-train  of  students,  or  Signorelli  splendid 
in  those  apparellings  which  were  the  comment 
of  his  age ;  and  on  these  broad  stone  terraces 
with  the  lizards  basking  on  their  stej)S  and  the 
trees  opening  to  show  a  vine-covered  hill  with 
the  white  oxen  creeping  down  it  and  the  blue 
mountains  farther  still  behind,  it  would  be  but 
fitting  to  see  a  dark  figure  sitting  and  painting 
lilies  upon  a  golden  ground,  or  cherubs'  heads 
upon  a  panel  of  cypress  wood,  and  to  hear  that 
this  painter  was  the  monk  Angehco. 

The  deepest  charm  of  these  old  gardens,  as 
of  their  country,  is,  after  all,  that  in  them  it  is 
possible  to  forget  the  present  age. 

In  the  full,  drowsy,  voluptuous  noon,  when 
they  are  a  gorgeous  blaze  of  colour  and  a  very 
intoxication  of  fragrance,  as  in  the  ethereal  white 
moonlight  of  midnight,  w^hen,  with  the  silver 
beams  and  the  white  blossoms  and  the  pale 
marbles,  they  are  like  a  world  of  snow,  their 
charm  is  one  of  rest,  silence,  leisure,  dreams, 
and  passion  all  in  one  ;  they  belong  to  the  da3^s 
when  art  was  a  living  power,  when  love  was  a 


210  SIGNA. 


thing  of  heaven  or  of  hell,  and  when  men  had 
the  faith  of  children  and  the  force  of  gods. 

Those  days  are  dead,  hut  in  these  old  gardens 
you  can  believe  still  that  you  live  in  them. 

The  boy,  who  did  not  know  hardly  why  he 
was  moved  by  it  so  greatly,  musing  in  this 
garden  of  Giovoli,  and  sitting  watching  the  glow- 
worms in  the  ground  bindweed,  was  more  than 
half  consoled  for  the  cruelty  of  his  playmate. 
When  the  nine  o'clock  chimes  rang  down  below 
in  the  Lastra,  he  did  not  move ;  he  had  for- 
gotten that  if  he  were  away  when  Nita  should 
shut  her  house  up  he  would  have  another  beating 
and  no  supper. 

How  often  was  Giotto  scolded  for  letting  the 
sheep  stray  ? 

Very  often,  no  doubt. 

When  the  moon  had  quite  risen,  with  a  ring 
of  mist  round  her,  because  there  was  rain  hang- 
ing in  the  air,  little  feet  ran  over  the  bindweed, 
and  a  little  rosy  face,  all  the  prettier  for  the 
shadows  that  played  in  its  eyes  and  the  watery 
radiance  that  shone  in  its  curls,  looked  up  into 
his  with  saucy  merriment. 


SIGNA.  211 


A  little  piping  voice  ran  like  a  cricket's  chirp 
into  the  stillness. 

"You  may  swing  me  to-morrow — do  you 
hear?" 

Signa  started,  roused  from  his  musing. 

The  beautiful  things  were  mute ;  the  clouds 
and  the  leaves  told  him  nothing  more.  He  was 
onl}'  a  little  barefooted  boy,  vexed  at  being  left 
alone  and  jealous  of  big  brown  Tista. 

Gemma  was  a  pretty  sulky  baby,  with  a  pert 
tongue  and  a  sturdy  will  of  her  own ;  a  little 
thing  that  could  Jiot  read  a  letter,  and  cared  for 
nothing  but  for  eating  and  for  play ;  but  there 
were  shadowed  out  in  her  the  twin  foes  of  all 
genius — the  Woman  and  the  World. 

"  Are  you  sulking  here  ?  "  said  Gemma.  "  Tista 
swung  me  so  high  ! — so  high  !  Much  better  than 
you.  You  must  get  out  of  the  garden  now ;, 
father  is  come  to  lock  the  gates." 

Signa  got  up  slowly. 

"  Good-night,  Gemma." 

"  Good-night,  Gemma !  "  echoed  the  child, 
mimicking  the  sadness  of  his  answer.  "  Oh,  how 
stupid  you  are!     Just  like  Palma!     Tista  has 

p  2 


212  8IGNA. 


more  life  in  him,  only  he  never  has  anything  for 
one  except  those  little  green  apples.  You  may 
come  and  swing  me  to-morrow,  if  jow.  like." 

"  No  ;  you  love  Tista." 

"  But  I  love  you  hest." 

She  whispered  it  with  all  the  wooing  archness 
and  softness  of  twenty  years  instead  of  ten,  with 
the  moonbeams  shining  in  her  eyes  till  they 
looked  like  wet  cornflowers. 

Signa  was  silent.  He  knew  she  did  not  love 
him,  but  only  his  pears  that  he  got  for  her  from 
Bruno,  or  his  baked  cakes  that  he  coaxed  for 
her  from  old  Teresina. 

"You  will  come  to-morrow?"  said  Gemma, 
slipping  her  hand  into  his. 

"  You  Avill  flout  me  if  I  do  come." 

*'  No,"  said  Gemma. 

"  Yes,  you  will.     It  is  always  like  that." 

"  Try,"  said  Gemma;  and  she  kissed  him. 

'•'  I  will  come,"  said  Signa ;  and  he  went  away 
through  the  dewy  darkness,  forgetting  the  stolen 
apricots  and  the  choice  of  Tista.  It  was  so 
very  seldom  that  she  would  kiss  him,  and  she 
looked  so  pretty  in  the  moonlight. 


SIGNA.  213 


Gemma  glanced  after  him  through  the  bars  of 
the  high  iron  gate  with  the  japonica  and  jessa- 
mine twisting  round  its  coronet. 

Tista  was  going  away  on  the  morrow  into  the 
city  to  be  bound  'prentice  to  a  shoemaker,  who 
was  his  mother's  cousin,  and  had  offered  to 
take  him  cheaply. 

But  it  had  not  been  worth  while  to  tell  Signa 
that. 

''  There  would  have  been  nobody  to  swing  me 
if  I  had  not  coaxed  him,"  thought  Gemma ;  "  and 
perhaps  he  will  bring  me  one  of  those  big  sweet 
X^ears  of  Bruno's." 

And  the  little  child,  well  contented,  ran  off 
under  her  father's  shrill  scolding  for  being  out 
so  late,  and  went  indoors  and  drank  a  draught 
of  milk  that  Palma  had  begged  for  her  from  a 
neighbour  who  had  a  cow,  and  shpped  herself 
out  of  her  little  blue  shift  and  homespun  skirt, 
and  curled  herself  up  on  her  bed  of  hay  and  fell 
fast  asleep,  looking  like  a  sculptor's  sleeping 
Love^ 


CHAPTEK   XI. 


A  FEW  days  later  fell  the  feast  of  SS.  Peter  and 
Paul,  and  Signa  for  more  than  half  a  year  had 
been  promised  a  great  treat. 

Bruno  had  said  that  on  that  day  he  would  take 
him  to  see  the  marble  men  and  the  painted 
angels  of  the  Certosa  Monastery,  some  ten  miles 
away  along  the  bend  of  the  gTeen  Greve  water. 

What  Bruno  promised  he  did  always;  the 
child  had  the  surest  faith  in  his  word ;  and  by 
five  o'clock  in  the  fair  sunrise  of  the  June  morn- 
ing, Signa  slipped  down  the  dark  staircase,  and 
undid  the  door  and  ran  out  bareheaded  into  the 
sweet  cold  air,  and  stood  waiting  on  the  stones. 

The  Madonna  of  Good  Council  smiled  on  him 
through  her  wooden  wicket;  bells  were  ringing 


SIGNA.  215 


over  the  country  around ;  some  tender  hand  had 
akeady  placed  before  the  shrine  a  fresh  bunch  of 
field  flowers ;  the  sky  was  red  with  the  rose  of 
the  daybreak. 

He  had  not  waited  long  before  a  tall  figure 
turned  the  comer,  and  Bruno's  shadow  fell  upon 
the  slope. 

"  You  are  ready  ?  That  is  right,"  he  said, 
and  without  more  words  the  child  ran  on  by  his 
side  out  of  the  lofty  Fiorentina  gate. 

The  morning  was  fresh  and  radiant,  very  cold, 
as  it  always  is  in  midsummer,  before  the  sun  has 
warmed  the  earth  and  drunk  up  the  deep  night 
dews  that  drench  the  soil. 

The  shutters  of  the  houses  were  unclosing  and 
through  the  open  doors,  and  in  the  darkness  of 
the  cellars  there  was  the  yellow  gleam  of  wheat, 
cut  and  waiting  for  the  threshers ;  the  gardens 
and  yards  were  yellow,  too,  with  piles  of  straw- 
hats  wetted  and  drying  ;  the  shadows  were  broad 
and  black ;  men  were  beginning  their  work  in 
the  great  arched  smithies  and  workshops  ;  there 
was  everywhere  the  smell  of  the  wet  earth  re- 
freshed and  cooled  by  night. 


216  8IGNA. 


They  went  along  the  road  that  leads  to  the 
Greve  river ; — past  the  big  stone  barns  where 
the  flails  would  be  at  rest  all  day  for  sake  of  good 
SS.  Peter  and  Paul ;  past  the  piles  of  timber 
and  felled  fir-trees  that  strewed  the  edge  of  the 
road ;  past  the  old  grey  villa  of  the  Delia  Stufa 
who  nigh  a  thousand  years  before  had  come  over 
the  mountains,  Christian  knights  and  gallant 
gentlemen,  with  their  red  cross  and  their  tawny 
lions  on  their  shields ;  the  chapel  bell  was  caHing 
the  scattered  cotters  of  Castagnolo  to  first  mass ; 
past  the  pretty  bridge  of  the  Stagno  (the  pool) 
with  its  views  of  the  far  mountains,  and  the 
poplar-trees  that  the  Latins  named  so  because 
of  the  restlessness  of  their  leaves,  like  the  un- 
resting mob  ;  past  the  great  fortress  of  the  Castel 
Pucci,  once  built  to  hurl  defiance  at  the  city 
itself,  now  white  and  silent,  sheltering  in  its 
walls  the  woeful  pain,  and  yet  more  woeful  joys, 
of  minds  diseased ;  past  the  worthy  barber's 
shop,  where  it  is  written  up  that  he  has  only 
painted  his  sign  with  the  tricolour  to  quiet  taste- 
less whirligigs,  he  being  a  man  of  humour,  with  a 
pity  kindred  to  contempt  for  all  the  weathercock 


SIGNA.  2r 


vagaries  of  politics ;  past  the  old  dirt}^  tumble- 
down, wayside  houses,  where  the  floors  were 
strewn  with  the  new  straw  picked  for  the  plait- 
ing, and  the  babies  were  lying  in  flat  fruit-baskets, 
swaddled  and  laughing,  and  the  girls  were 
getting  ready  for  mass  with  bright  petticoats 
and  braided  hair  and  big  earrings,  and,  if  they 
were  betrothed  maidens,  strings  of  pearls  about 
their  throats;  past  all  these  till  they  came 
to  the  Greve  bridge,  where  they  met  a  i)riest 
with  the  Host  in  the  brightness  of  the  festal  day- 
dawn. 

They  uncovered  their  heads  and  knelt  down 
in  the  dust  and  prayed  for  the  passing  soul  till 
the  little  bell,  borne  before  the  holy  man,  had 
tinckled  away  in  the  distance.  Then  they 
walked  on  by  the  Greve  water  under  the  shivering 
poplars  and  amongst  the  grazing  sheep. 

There  is  no  regular  path  along  the  river ; 
but  they  made  one  for  themselves,  brushing 
through  the  canes,  getting  round  the  rushes, 
or  when  it  was  needed,  wading  knee-deep,  or 
oftener,  for  the  water  was  low,  walking  in  the 
stony  sand  of  the  dry  river  bed. 


218  SIGNA. 


Once  it  was  a  waiiilie  water  enough,  in  the 
old  days  when  the  Lotteringhi  and  Alberti,  and 
Acciajoli  and  Pandolfini,  and  all  the  other  great 
races,  Guelph  and  Ghibelline,  had  their  fortified 
places  bristling  along  its  banks  ;  when  its  stone 
landing  quays  were  crowded  with  condottieri 
watering  their  horses  ere  they  went  to  lend  their 
lances  to  the  strongest ;  when  mighty  nobles  in 
penitence  raised  shrines  and  built  hospitals  beside 
it  to  seek  God's  grace  upon  their  arms  ;  when 
the  long  lines  of  pilgrims  wound  along  it,  or  the 
creeping  files  of  sumpter  mules,  or  the  bright 
aiTay  of  the  White  Company ;  in  those  days 
Greve  was  a  busy  stream,  and  was  as  often  as  not 
made  red  with  the  blood  let  out  in  many  a 
skirmish  or  the  reflected  flames  from  a  castle 
fired  in  feud. 

But  all  that  is  of  the  past.  Now  it  is  only  a 
millrace,  a  washing  pool,  a  ford,  a  fishing  burn, 
anything  the  people  liked  to  make  of  it ;  it  sees 
nothing  but  the  miller's  mules  or  the  grape 
waggons,  or  the  women  with  their  piles  of  white 
linen;  and  the  only  battles  it  beholds  are  the 
fighting  of  the  frogs  in  the  canebrake  or  of  the 


SIGNA.  219 


tree  sparrows  in  the  aii\  Now  the  Greve  is  a 
simple  pastoral  river.  No  one  has  ever  sung  of 
it  that  one  knows.  It  lies  so  near  to  the  Arno, 
held  dear  by  every  poet  and  made  sacred  by 
every  art,  that  the  little  Greve  is  as  a  daisy 
set  beside  a  crown  diamond ;  and  no  one  thinks 
of  it. 

Yet  perhaps — only  one  dare  not  say  so  for 
one's  life — perhaps  it  has  as  much  real  loveli- 
ness as  Arno  has.  It  has  the  same  valley — it 
has  the  same  mountains — it  is  encompassed  by  the 
same  scenes  and  memories  ;  and  it  has  a  sylvan 
beauty,  all  of  its  own,  like  Wye's  or  Dart's  or 
Derwent's. 

Grassy  banks  where  the  sheep  browse ;  tall 
poplars,  gTeat  oaks,  rich  walnuts,  firs,  and 
ma]3les,  and  silver  larch,  and  the  beautiful 
cercis  that  blossoms  all  over  in  a  night ;  calm 
stretches  of  green  water,  with  green  hills  that 
lock  it  in  ;  old  water-mills,  half  hidden  in  maize 
and  dog-grass  and  plumy  reeds ;  broken  ground 
above  with  winding  roads  from  which  the  mule 
bells  echo  now  and  then ;  steep  heights,  golden 
with  grain,  or  fragrant  with  hay,  and  dusky  with 


220  SIGN  A. 


the  dark  emerald  leaf  of  the  innumerable  vines  ; 
deej)  sense  of  coolness,  greenness,  restfulness 
everywhere  ;  and  then,  where  the  river's  wind- 
ings meet  its  sister  stream  the  Ema,  set  in  a 
narrow  gorge  between  two  hills,  yet  visible  all 
along  the  reaches  of  the  water  while  far  off,  the 
monastery  of  the  Carthusians — the  Certosa — 
ending  all  the  sweet  song  of  peace  with  a  great 
hymn  to  God. 

This  is  the  Greve — with  flowering  rushes  in 
it,  and  the  sun  in  its  water  till  it  glows  like 
emeralds,  and  goats  going  down  to  drink,  and 
here  and  there  a  woman  cutting  the  green  canes, 
and  dragon-flies  and  swallows  on  the  wing,  and 
oxen  crossing  the  flat  timber  bridge,  and  from 
the  woods  and  rocks  above  the  sound  of  chapel 
bells  and  reapers'  voices  falling  through  the  air, 
softly  as  dropping  leaves. 

Bruno  and  the  child  kept  always  along  the 
course  of  the  water,  walking  in  its  bed  or  climb- 
ing its  banks  as  necessity  made  them. 

Bruno  was  never  a  man  of  many  words  ;  the 
national  loquacity  was  not  his ;  he  was  fierce, 
sudden,  taciturn,  but  he  smiled  on  the  little  lad's 


SIGNA.  221 


esctacies,  and  though  he  could  tell  him  none  of 
the  ten  thousand  things  that  Signa  wished  to 
know,  yet  he  said  nothing  that  did  not  suit  the 
joyous  and  poetic  mood  of  the  child ;  for  though 
Bruno  was  an  ignorant  man,  except  in  hus- 
bandry, Love  is  sympathy,  and  Sympathy  is  intel- 
ligence in  a  strong  degree. 

Signa  was  wildly  happy ;  leaping  from  stone 
to  stone  ;  splashing  in  the  shallow  water  with  a 
jump ;  calling  to  the  gossipping  frogs ;  flinging 
the  fir-apples  in  the  aii' ;  clapping  his  hands  as 
the  field-mice  peeped  out  from  the  lines  of  cut 
grain ;  wondering  where  the  poppies  were  all 
gone  that  a  week  before  had  '^run  like  torchmen 
with  the  wheat." 

Once,  his  hands  filled  with  blossoms  and 
creepers  from  the  hedges,  he  stopped  to  gather  a 
little  blue  cornflower  that  had  outlived  the  corn 
as  mortals  do  their  joys. 

'*  Why  is  it  called  St.  Stephen's  crown  ?  "  he 
asked. 

"  How  should  I  tell  ?  "  said  Bruno ;  for  in- 
deed it  seemed  to  him  the  silliest  name  that 
could  be. 


222  SIGNA. 


"Do  you  think  it  saw  when  tbey  stoned,  him, 
and  was  sorry  ?''  said  Signa. 

"  How  should  a  flower  ^ee  ?  You  talk  foolish- 
ness." 

"  Flowers  see  the  sun." 

''  That  is  foolish  talk." 

''And  the  moon,  too,  else  how  could  they 
keep  time,  and  shut  and  go  to  bed  ?  And  sonie- 
body  must  have  named  them  all — who  was 
it?" 

Bruno  was  silent.  Cattle  liked  dried  flowers 
in  their  hay,  and  horses  would  not  eat  them  ; 
that  was  all  he  knew  about  them,  and  when  the 
child  persisted,  answered  him  : 

"  The  saints,  most  likely." 

But  he  said  within  himself : 

"  If  only  the  boy  would  pull  off  lizards'  tails, 
or  snare  birds,  like  other  boys,  instead  of  asking 
such  odd  questions  that  make  one  think  him 
hardly  sensible  sometimes  !  " 

Signa,  a  little  pacified,  gathered  his  hands 
full,  and  ran  on,  puzzling  his  little  brain  in 
silence.  He  had  a  fancy  that  St.  John  had 
named  them  all  one  day  out  of  gladness  of  heart 


SIGN  A.  223 


when  Christ  had  kissed  him.     That  was  what  he 
thought,  running  by  the  Greve  water. 

Who  did  indeed  first  name  the  flowers  ? 
Who  first  gave  them,  not  their  Latin  titles,  but 
the  old,  familiar,  fanciful,  poetic,  rustic  ones  that 
run  so  curiously  alike  in  all  the  different  vulgar 
tongues  ? 

Who  first  called  the  lilies  of  the  valley  the 
Madonna's  tears ;  the  wild  blue  hyacinth  St. 
Dorothy's  flower  ?  Who  first  called  the  red 
clusters  of  the  oleander  St.  Joseph's  nosegays, 
and  the  clematis  by  her  many  lovely  titles,  con- 
solation, traveller's  joy,  \drgin's  bower  ?  AVho 
gave  the  spiderwort  to  St.  Bruno ;  the  black 
briony  for  Our  Lady's  Seal ;  the  corn-feverfew 
to  St.  Anne  ;  the  common  bean  to  St.  Ignatius 
the  bane-berry  to  St.  Christopher;  the  blue 
valerian  to  Jacob  for  his  angel's  ladder ;  the 
toywort  to  the  shepherds  for  their  purse  ?  Who 
first  called  the  nyctanthes  the  tree  of  sad- 
ness ;  and  the  starry  passiflora  the  Passion  of 
Christ  ?  Who  fu'st  made  dedication  of  the 
narcissus  to  remembrance;  the  amaranthus  to 
wounded,    bleeding    love ;    the    scabius    to   the 


224  SIGNA. 


desolation  of  widowhood  ?     Who  named  them  all 
first  in  the  old  daj'S  that  are  forgotten  ? 

It  is  strange  that  most  of  these  tender  old  appel- 
latives are  the  same  in  meaning  in  all  European 
tongues.  The  little  German  madchen  in  her 
pinewoods,  and  the  Tuscan  contadina  in  her  vine- 
yards, and  the  Spanish  child  on  the  sierras,  and 
the  farm-girl  on  the  purple  English  moorlands, 
and  the  soft-eyed  peasant  that  drives  her  milch 
cows  through  the  sunny  evening  fields  of  France, 
all  gathering  their  blossoms  from  wayside  green 
or  garden  wall,  give  them  almost  all  the  same 
old  names  with  the  same  sweet  pathetic  signi- 
ficance.    Who  gave  them  first? 

Milton  and  Spenser  and  Shelley,  Tasso  and 
Schiller  and  Camoens — all  the  poets  that  ever 
the  world  has  known,  might  have  been  summoned 
together  for  the  baptism  of  the  flowers,  and  have 
failed  to  .name  them  half  so  well  as  popular 
tradition  has  done,  long  ago  in  the  dim  lost  ages, 
with  names  that  still  make  all  the  world  akin. 

Meanwhile  the  man  and  boy  came  to  a  wooden 
bridge  that  bullocks  were  crossing,  with  flowers 
in  their  frontlets  and  red   tassels.     There  was  a 


SIGNA.  225 

bi'ukeii  arch  beyond  of  a  bridge  that  Greve  had 
thrown  dovai  in  flood.  The  reaped  wheat  was 
lyuig  on  the  hills.  The  long  cool  grass  tossed 
about  to  the  water's  edge.  Children  were  fishing 
in  the  shallows. 

Up  above  there  was  an  open  space,  with  a  house 
that  had  a  green  bough  over  its  door,  and  men 
drinking,  and  mules  resting  with  their  noses  in 
fresh  cut  cane  leaves.  Here  they  left  the  bed  of 
the  stream,  and  went  up  on  the  high  path  that 
goes  along  the  wooded  heights  with  the  bold 
green  bluff's  on  either  side,  and  the  vines  below, 
and  the  river  under  the  aspens  between  them. 

They  went  along  the  path  which  is  hardly  more 
than  a  mule  and  ox  track,  rising  higher  and 
higher,  with  the  blue  mountains  behind  them, 
through  the  blackberry  brambles  and  the  starry 
clematis,  and  the  wild  m3'rtle,  and  the  innu- 
merable hill  flowers  of  all  hues,  and  past  a 
rambling  farm-house  called  Assinaria,  with  old 
arched  doorways,  and  a  bo}^  drawing  water  by  a 
rope,  standing  in  a  high  unglazed  window,  wdtli 
blue  shirt  and  brown  limbs,  against  the  dark 
behind  him,  like  a  figure  i)ainted  upon  an  oaken 

VOL.    I.  Q 


226  SIGNA. 


panel;  and  then  ancle-deep  through  the  sea  of 
yellow  corn  strewn  all  ahout  around  the  place 
awaiting  threshing,  and  out  on  to  a  knoll  of 
rock  set  thick  with  rosemary,  and  so  on  in  view  of 
the  Certosa. 

The  Certosa,  afar  off,  above  the  stream  with 
the  woods  in  front  beneath  it,  so  that  it  seemed 
lifted  on  a  forest  throne  of  verdure  against  the 
morning  splendour  of  the  east;  as  he  saw  it, 
Signa  was  still  a  minute,  and  drew  a  deep,  long 
breath. 

Approached  from  the  Koman  road  the  mo- 
nastery is  nothmg  ;  a  pile  of  buildings,  irregular, 
and  only  grand  by  its  extent,  on  a  bare  crest  of 
rock ;  but  approached  from  the  Greve  river,  when 
the  morning  sun,  shining  behind  it,  shrouds  its 
vast  pile  in  golden  mist,  and  darkens  the  wooded 
valley  at  its  feet,  the  monastery  is  beautiful,  and 
all  the  faith  and  the  force  of  the  age  that  begot 
it  are  in  it :  it  is  a  Te  Deum  in  stone. 

''  It  looks  as  if  the  angels  fought  there," 
said  Signa,  with  hushed  awe,  as  he  stood  on  the 
sward  and  made  the  sign  of  the  cross;  and 
indeed  it  has  a  look  as  of  a  fortress,  Acciajoli, 


SIGNA.  227 


wlien  he  raised  and  consecrated  it,  having  prayed 
the  Republic  to  let  him  make  it  war-proof  and 
braced  for  battle. 

"  Men  fight  the  devil  tliere,"  said  Bruno, 
believing  what  he  said. 

The  chimes  of  the  monastery  were  ringing  out 
for  the  first  mass ;  deep  bells  and  of  sweet  tone, 
that  came  down  the  river  like  a  benediction  on 
the  day. 

Signa  kneeled  down  in  the  grass. 

*'Did  you  pray  for  the  holy  men?"  Bruno 
asked  him  when  ihey  rose,  and  they  went  on 
under  the  tall,  green,  quivering  trees. 

"  No,"  said  Signa,  under  his  breath.  '^  I 
prayed  for  the  devil." 

**  For  him  !  "  echoed  Bruno  aghast,  "  what  are 
you  about,  child  ?  are  you  possessed  ?  do  you 
know  what  the  good  priests  would  say  ?  " 

"  I  prayed  for  him,"  said  Signa,  with  that  per- 
sistency which  ran  with  his  docile  temper.  "  It 
is  he  who  wants  it.  To  be  wicked  there  where 
God  is,  and  the  sun,  and  the  bells.*' 

**  But  he  is  the  foe  of  God.  It  is  horrible  to 
pray  for  him." 

Q  2 


228  SIGN  A. 


"  No,"  said  Signa,  sturdil3\  "  God  says  we 
are  to  forgive  our  enemies  and  help  them.  I 
only  asked  him  to  begin  with  His." 

Bruno  was  silent.  He  did  not  know  what  to 
say  to  the  boy.  The  devil  to  him  was  a  terrible 
reality ;  had  he  not  seen  him  with  his  black, 
foul  deformity  and  flame -vomiting  jaws  on  the 
frescoed  walls,  whenever  he  had  entered  any 
church  in  the  heat  of  noon,  to  sit  a  little  and 
turn  his  face  to  the  pillars,  and  hear  the 
murmurs  of  low  mass  in  some  side  chapel  ? 

The  devil  lived  in  the  flesh  for  Bruno ;  the 
devil  had  made  him  stab  Pippa ;  the  devil  was 
always  in  the  fire  of  his  tongue,  and  in  the  haste 
of  his  hand ;  and  these  holy  painters  of  the  church 
had  surely  seen  the  devil  in  the  flesh,  or  how 
could  they  ever  have  portrayed  him  ? 

"  Pray  for  those  the  devil  enters,  carino,"  he 
said,  sadly.  *'  When  you  have  done  with  them  it 
will  be  time  to  pray  for  him,  and  they  count  by 
tens  of  thousands." 

*^  It  is  best  to  pray  for  him,  himself,"  said 
Signa,  with  his  docile  determination  to  keep  his 
own  ideas  which  Nita  so  constantly  endeavoured 


SIGNA.  229 


to  thrash  out  of  him.  "  Perhaps  men  made  hhn 
bad,  because  they  would  not  leave  him  any  hope 
of  being  better." 

"Do  not  talk  of  those  things,  the  priests 
would  not  like  it,  Signa,"  said  Bruno,  to  whom 
such  a  manner  of  speaking  of  Satan  seemed 
impious — only  the  child  was  so  young — heaven, 
he  trusted,  would  not  be  angry. 

Sigiia  was  silent;  he  obeyed  an  order  always; 
only  he  kept  his  own  ideas ;  it  was  as  a  dog 
obeys  a  call,  but  keeps  its  instincts. 

But  liis  joyous  chatter  was  subdued.  He  kept 
looking  up  at  the  great  monastery  above  the 
woods,  that  was  all  in  a  glow  of  sunlight,  and 
where  men  fought  the  devil,  and,  perhaps,  saw 
God. 

**  I  would  not  fight  him,"  he  thought  to  him- 
self. "  I  would  just  bring  him  out,  and  tell  him 
to  look  down  the  river,  and  I  think  he  would  take 
no  more  pleasure  in  hell  then." 

And  he  fancied  he  saw  golden-haired  Michael 
and  the  angel  that  was  called  Gabriel  leading  the 
dark  incarnate  Sin  out  there,  into  the  light,  till 
the  sun  changed  his  sable  wings  to  silver. 


230  SIGN  A. 


Satan  was  as  real  to  him  as  to  Bruno ;  only  lie 
felt  sorry  for  him,  always  sorry,  when  he  heard 
the  priests  talk  of  him  and  saw  the  old  terrible 
pictures  on  the  walls  of  all  the  woe  he  wrought 
and  the  devouring  flames. 

Signa  had  thought  a  great  deal  about  all  these 
things — sitting  in  the  dusky  aisle  with  his  hand 
telling  his  beads  and  his  little  hot  feet  on  the 
cold  pavement,  while  they  droned  out  the  mass. 

There  were  other  country  people  waiting  to  go 
in ;  the  peasants  love  these  places  ;  you  will  see 
them  very  often  in  little  groups,  hushed  and  yet 
happy,  wandering  very  quietly  through  the  aisles 
of  the  churches  or  monasteries,  or  sitting  against 
the  columns  or  in  the  shade  on  the  altar  steps. 
Though  the}^  are  a  mirthful  people  at  times,  and 
like  their  lotteries  and  dominoes  and  whirling 
dances  and  gossiping  jokes,  there  is  something 
in  the  solemn  rest,  in  the  serious  dusky  stillness, 
that  suits  them  strangely  ;  the  houses  of  God 
are  really  to  them  abodes  of  rest;  they  take 
their  tired  limbs  there  and  get  repose  actual  as 
well  as  figurative ;  perhaps  they  do  not  think 
about  anything,  but  sit  in  a  sort  of  day  sleep 


SIGNA.  231 


when  their  prayers  are  done  ;  but  the  influence 
of  the  place  is  with  them  and  their  love  for  it  is 
true. 

A  white-ffocked  brother  met  them  in  the  long 
vaulted  passage-way,  looking  as  though  he  had 
stepped  out  from  some  canvas  of  Del  Sarto's,  and 
they  went  in  with  the  five  other  contadini  wait- 
ing there  ;  Bruno,  with  his  brown  cloak  on  one 
shoulder  and  a  clean  shii't,  and  the  child  in 
rough  white  linen  with  a  carnation  at  his  throat ; 
a  flower  in  the  ear  or  at  the  throat  is  seen  here 
so  often  with  bare  legs  and  feet. 

Signa,  awe-stricken  and  full  of  the  beauty  of 
the  place,  was  mute  as  they  strayed  through  its 
cloisters  and  crypt,  and  followed  the  white-frocked 
brother,  and  passed  other  monks  kneeling  wrapt  in 
prayer  or  meditation.  Only  when  he  came  to  where 
the  old  bishop  lies  asleep  in  the  wonderful  marble 
of  Francesco  di  San  Gallo  he  was  moved  by  a 
sudden  impulse,  and  plucked  the  end  of  Bruno's 
cloak. 

"  I  should  like  to  sing  him  something,"  he 
whispered. 

"  Sing  ?  to  whom  ?  " 


232  SIGNA. 

"To  that  old  man,"  said  Signa,  and  then 
coloured,  ashamed  of  himself. 

**  His  soul  is  in  heaven,  he  would  be  angered," 
said  Bruno,  in  dismay.  "  He  hears  much  better 
singing  than  yours.  Look  !  the  padre  is  shocked 
at  you,  and  in  this  holy  place  !  " 

Signa  hung  his  head. 

"Are  you  fond  of  singing,  little  fellow?" 
asked  a  stranger,  who  had  been  looking  at  the 
Perugino  on  the  wall. 

Signa  nodded  shyly. 

"And  why  do  jon  want  to  sing  to  the  dead 
bishop  ?  " 

"  Because  he  is  only  asleep,"  said  Signa,  timidly, 
"  and  it  might  give  him  pretty  dreams.  Old  Tere- 
sina  says  she  always  has  good  dreams  towards 
morning,  because  I  go  under  the  house  singing." 

"  Sing,  then,"  said  the  stranger,  and  turned  to 
the  monk  with  some  words  of  entreaty. 

"If  it  be  a  holy  song,"  said  the  monk,  with 
reluctant  consenting. 

"  He  sings  well,"  said  Bruno,  with  an  outbreak 
of  the  tender  pride  in  Signa,  which  he  endeavoured 
to  conceal,  but  could  not  always. 


SIGNA.  233 


Signa  was  shy  and  silent  for  a  minute ;  he 
wished  he  had  not  spoken  of  doing  it,  with  this 
grand  strange  signore  there ;  but  the  old  dead 
man's  face  smiled  at  him,  and  the  Holy  Child 
in  Perugino's  picture  seemed  to  look  down  in 
expectation ;  he  forgot  the  living  people ;  the 
bishop  and  the  Gesu  were  all  he  saw  ;  he  joined 
his  hands  as  if  he  were  at  prayer,  and  sang  a 
sacrament  hymn  of  Pergolesi  that  they  sang  in 
his  own  church. 

AVhether  the  good  bishop  dead  five  hundred 
years,  or  hard-headed  honest  Perugino  sleeping 
imder  the  wayside  oak  in  Frontignano,  heard 
or  not,  who  shall  say  till  the  secret  of  the  grave 
be  loosed  ?  But  the  contadini  standing  reve- 
rently by,  and  the  white-robed  monk,  and  the 
listening  stranger  heard,  and  held  their  breath. 
The  monk  turned  his  head  a  moment  to  Perugino's 
picture  to  see  if  it  were  not  some  mii-acle  being 
wrought  there,  and  the  Angels  of  the  Nativity 
singing  instead  of  this  peasant  child. 

Signa  sang  on  as  larks  do,  forgettmg  every- 
thing when  once  his  voice  was  loosened  on  the 
air,  and  without  knowing  what  he  did,  left  the 


234  SIGN  A. 


hymn  of  Pergolesi,  and  sang  on  and  on  and  on 
cadences  that  were  to  he  traced  to  no  written 
score,  and  that  came  to  him,  he  never  could  tell 
how — just  as  they  came  upon  the  mountain  side, 
with  not  a  creature  near.  The  words  were  the 
words  of  the  Latin  services,  hut  the  cadences 
were  his  own  as  much  as  the  thrush's  are  its  own 
in  the  hawthorn  time. 

He  might  have  sang  on  till  sunset  if  two  other 
monks  drawn  hy  the  unwonted  sounds  had  not 
come  near  and  looked  on  through  the  half  open 
door.  The  sound  stopped  him;  he  paused 
startled  and  half  ashamed ;  and  not  another  note 
could  he  got  from  him. 

"  He  is  not  angry,"  he  whispered  to  Bruno, 
looking  at  the  statue.     "  He  is  smiling  still." 

*'  You  would  make  marble  smile,  if  it  had 
frowned  through  ages,  till  you  sang,"  said  the 
stranger,  while  the  monks  murmured  something  of 
a  gift  of  God.  "  My  pretty  little  boy,  you  may 
make  the  world  hear  of  you,  your  mouth  will 
drop  gold." 

Signa  glanced  at  him  bewildered;  he  under- 
stood nothing  of  this  kind  of  language. 


SIGNA.  235 


"  Come  with  me  where  I  am  painting,"  said  the 
stranger,  '^I  should  Hke  to  hear  who  taught  you 
your  perfect  phrasing — who  taught  you  to  sing,  I 
mean  ?  Come  wdth  me  a  few  minutes.  Is  that 
your  father  with  you  ?  " 

"  That  is  Bruno,"  said  Signa.  For  the  first 
time  it  occurred  to  him — why  had  he  no  father  ? 
Was  he  horn  out  of  the  old  town  from  the  stones 
and  ivy  as  the  owls  were  ? 

"  Not  your  father  ?  What  is  he  to  you 
then  ?  " 

^'  He  is  always  good.  I  keep  his  sheep  some- 
times." 

The  artist  did  not  ask  any  more  ;  the  boy  was 
some  peasant's  son ;  it  did  not  matter  whose. 
"  But  who  taught  you  to  sing  ?  "  he  pm'sued. 

"  I  sing  in  the  churches  at  home." 

"  But  have  you  had  no  teacher  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Signa  ;  then  added,  after  a  pause, 
"  The  bu'ds  do  not  have  any." 

"  But  much  that  you  sang — it  is  no  known 
music — ^is  it  composed  by  some  village  genius 
of  whom  no  one  has  heard  ?  " 

Signa  was  very  puzzled. 


236  SIGNA. 


"  I  sing  the  music  that  I  have  in  my  head,"  he 
said,  after  a  httle  while. 

*'  Then  it  is  jon  who  have  the  genius — a 
second  Mozart  ?  " 

Signa  could  not  understand  those  words  at  all. 
Perhaps  he  was  something  wicked.  Nita  was 
always  saying  so. 

*^  A  genius  ?  that  is  a  sin  ?  "  he  asked,  shyly. 

The  artist  laughed.  '^Yes;  unless  you  can 
sell  it  well.     A  sin  sold  well  is  half  forgiven." 

The  child  did  not  understand,  but  was  a  little 
frightened.  To  speak  of  sin  at  all  was  eerie  in 
this  great  place,  where  men  all  da}^  long  and  all 
night  long  fought  the  fiend. 

'^I  should  like  to  paint  your  face,"  said  the 
stranger:  "as  Perugino  did  the  Holy  Child's 
that  3^ou  look  at  so — oh,  a  few  lines  will  do,  but 
I  fanc}^  3^our  face  will  be  well  known  to  a  great 
world  one  day,  and  you  have  a  look  in  your 
e^^es  that  is  beautiful — can  you  wait?" 

The  child  asked  Bruno.  Bruno  was  dis- 
pleased, but  an  Italian  has  a  respect  for  art  and 
artists  ;  he  muttered  unwillingly  that  it  was  a 
feast  day,  the  boy  might  do  as  he  liked  for  him ; 


SIGNA. 


it  was  a  folly,  but  it  would  not  hurt ;  it  was  not 
as  if  it  were  a  girl. 

Tlie  child  went  willingly  into  the  room  that  is 
sacred  to  the  Poises,  and  where  dread  Leo  frowned 
on  him.  In  the  wide  wmdow,  looking  to  the 
north  on  to  the  purple  mountains,  there  stood  an 
easel  and  other  things  of  a  painter's  work  ;  the 
artist  being  a  great  man,  and  biinging  authoiity 
of  governments  with  him,  was  painting  that 
glorious  view,  and  hving  in  retreat  there  for  a 
few  days. 

Bruno  followed  them  ;  he  would  rather  have 
preferred  that  strangers  should  leave  the  boy 
alone  ;  he  was  jealous  over  him,  and  he  thought 
that  i)raise  would  make  him  vain. 

So  Signa  stood  in  his  little  white  shirt,  with 
his  dark  curls  that  had  the  gold  light  in  them 
touching  his  tln'oat,  and  the  painter  painted  his 
head  and  shoulders  with  his  chest  half  bare, 
and  the  carnation  bright  against  the  skin. 

He  swept  the  likeness  in  with  the  fast,  broad, 
true  touches  of  a  great  artist,  who  with  a  dozen 
strokes  can  suggest  a  whole  picture,  as  Eem- 
brandt  drew  Jan  Six's  Bridge. 


238  SIGN  A. 


In  half  an  hour  he  had  what  he  wanted ;  a  little 
face  full  of  sadness  and  joy  together,  and  most 
purely  child-like,  with  a  look  in  the  eyes  that 
would  make  women  weep. 

He  had  been  waiting  for  such  a  face  in  his 
great  picture  of  the  child  Demophoon  in  the 
sacred  fire ;  for  whose  scene  he  had  come  to  these 
purple  hills  and  dreamful  plains  as  all  the  old 
painters — and  Kaffaelle,  in  his  days  of  wisdom — 
had  come  to  these  or  such  as  these. 

To  move  the  boy  to  wondering  interest  and 
wake  the  eager,  rapt  look  in  his  eyes,  the  painter 
talked  to  him,  with  easy  graphic  language, 
simple,  yet  eloquent,  such  as  the  child  had  never 
heard. 

He  told  him  about  the  flowers  he  loved ; 
about  the  mountains  ;  about  the  dead  Acciajoli, 
whose  marble  effigies  were  in  the  crypt  below; 
about  Donatello,  who  had  carved  the  stone  war- 
riors in  their  mighty  rest ;  about  Giuliano,  who 
had  sculptm^ed  the  fruits  and  flowers  there  to 
take  away  all  terrors  from  the  tomb  ;  about  S. 
Brvmo  the  founder,  and  of  the  far  lone  Alps,  where 
he   had   dwelt,  forbidding  the    sight  of  woman 


SIGNA.  239 


for  many  a  mile  around;  about  the  builder  of 
this  charter-house,  gentle  Orgagna,  that  good 
old  man,  who  loved  to  pamt  Cupids  frolicking 
Tvith  young  maidens  under  orange  boughs,  and 
brave  youths  hawking  under  sunny  skies,  and 
yet  could  draw  Black  Death  as  if  he  feared  her 
not,  but  sent  her  upward  through  the  air  as 
though,  by  allegory,  not  to  leave  men  without 
hope  ;  one  of  those  might}^  workers  who  could 
write  sculptor  on  theii"  canvas  and  painter  on  their 
marble  ;  one  of  those  great,  rich,  wise  hves  that 
make  the  best  of  our  own  look  so  barren,  spent  in 
raising  great  piles  and  colouring  beautiful  things, 
and  dwelhng  hi  peace  and  honour,  and  closing 
tranquilly  when  their  course  was  run.  Orgagna 
was  writing  sonnets  when  he  died  to  a  young 
lad  he  loved.  Sixty  years  old,  and  yet  with 
strength  and  youth  and  faith  enough,  and  enough 
freshness  of  heaii:  and  soul,  to  write  a  soimet  that 
should  please  a  boy  !  These  men  had  never  been 
bitten  in  the  heel  by  the  snake  of  Satiety ;  the 
womid  which  kills  the  Achilles  of  Modern  Art. 

Bruno,   stretched   on  a  bench,  lay  still  as  a 
felled  tree  and  listened. 


240  SIGNA. 


"  If  I  could  talk  like  that  to  Signa  he  would 
love  me  better,"  he  thought;  but  how  w^as  he  to 
talk  like  that — a  man  who  knew  how  to  make 
barley  grow,  and  how  to  drive  bullocks  over  the 
land,  and  how  to  cleanse  the  vines  with  sulphur, 
but  no  more. 

He  wished  the  painter  would  not  tell  the  child 
the  world  would  know  of  him — what  use  was 
there  in  that.  Valdarno  and  the  hills  were 
world  enough — and  were  he  to  sing  and  the 
great  unknown  cities  hear  him,  he  would  have 
to  go  awa}^  for  that,  and  Bruno  hoped  to  keep 
him  alwa^^s — always — always,  and  see  him  safe 
for  all  the  future  after  him  on  that  good  piece  of 
land  on  the  hill- side,  where  Pippa  had  come 
through  the  beanflowers  at  sunset. 

What  better  life  was  there  than  that,  with  the 
meek  beasts  on  the  corn-lands,  high  in  the  air 
amongst  the  vines  ? 

Kings  no  doubt  were  higher,  and  great  lords; 
but  Bruno  pitied  them. 

Tw^o  o'clock  came,  and  the  monks  had  their 
simple  dinner  in  their  refectory,  and  the  same 
fare  was  brought  to  the  artist  as  to  any  lait}^  who 


SIONA.  241 


may  dwell  there  in  retreat,  and  lie  made  them 
bring  portions  for  the  contadino  and  the  child, 
and  added  wine  of  his  own  getting,  rich  and  rare. 

Bruno  and  Signa  took  it  without  ado,  and  with 
the  simple  animal-like  grace  which  is  bred  in 
Italian  blood  as  in  the  limbs  of  the  chamois  or 
the  wings  of  the  swallow. 

He  was  a  great  man,  perhaps,  and  rich,  no 
doubt,  and  far  above  them  ;  but  why  should  they 
be  ashamed  to  break  his  bread  with  him  ? 

Thej^  would  have  broken  theirs  with  him. 

As  for  him,  now  he  had  the  face  he  wanted — the 
face  that  he  had  sought  for  high  and  low  amongst 
the  beautiful  children  of  the  liiviera,  and  alwaj^s 
vainly — he  did  not  care  how  soon  they  went  nor 
where ;  and  yet  the  boy  had  a  wonderful  voice — 
onl}^  children  were  so  often  wonderful  in  Italy 
that  no  one  ever  heard  of  when  they  were  grown 
to  men — a  precocious,  swiftly  passing,  universal 
genius,  that  burst  to  beauty  like  a  rose  laurel 
blossom,  and  dropped  down  without  fruit.  Still, 
this  little  barefoot  boy,  that  sang  to  the  dead 
bishop,  had  something  in  his  face  that  surely 
would  not  die. 

TOL.    I.  R 


242  SIGNA. 


"  If  I  took  you  with  me  to  the  big  world  they 
would  make  an  idol  of  you,  little  lark,"  he  said, 
as  the  boy  put  down  his  white  bowl  of  soup. 
'*  Would  you  come  if  I  would  take  you  ?" 

Signa  looked  up  to  Bruno's  face  and  across  at 
the  hills  that  hid  his  old  town  from  his  sight. 

"  No,"  he  said,  simply,  but  his  face  flushed  all 
over  suddenly ;  a  vague  fanc}^,  a  dim  possibility 
broke  before  him  like  the  faint  rose  that  is  promise 
of  the  sunrise.  Only  he  was  too  young  and  knew 
too  little  to  be  able  to  be  sure  of  what  he 
thought. 

"No?  Well,  you  are  right,"  said  the  great 
painter,  smiling.  "  To  a  million  blanks  one  prize, 
only  the  i^rize  is  a  proud  one,  once  got ;  though 
the  men  whose  hands  are  empty  deny  it,  to  console 
themselves.  But  be  content  in  your  life,  little 
fellow ;  it  is  a  good  one  ;  you  are  not  like  a  town 
child,  '  un  brin  d'herbe,  sans  soleil,  entre  deux 
paves.'  You  have  the  sun  and  the  air  and  the 
country,  the  old  painters  knew  the  value  of  these ; 
we  do  not.  Look  here,  my  pretty  boy,  take  these 
pieces  and  buy  what  you  fancy,  and  if  you  ever 
do  wander  far  afield  and  want  help,  here  is  my 


SIGNA,  243 


name ;  come  to  me  and  remind  me  of  the  Certosa, 
and  such  influence  as  I  have  with  other  men  I 
will  use  for  you.  But  if  you  are  wise  you  will 
not  wander.  The  ox  furrows  are  safer  travelling 
than  the  city  stones.     Farewell." 

He  gave  the  boy  two  gold  pieces  of  France,  and 
smiled  at  him,  and  went  within  to  the  dormitory. 
He  would  not  have  minded  the  child  remaining 
all  the  day,  but  he  was  tired  of  seeing  that  black- 
browed  contadino  stretched,  listening  and  silent, 
on  the  bench.  Besides,  he  wanted  to  go  on  with 
his  landscape. 

"  Am  I  to  keep  them  ?  "  said  Signa,  looking 
down  at  the  money  in  his  palm. 

"  Money  is  money,"  said  Bruno,  briefly.  *'  It 
is  forty  francs.  Francs  do  not  hang  in  the 
hedges." 

Signa  was  silent  in  absolute  amaze.  He  had 
never  had  a  centime  for  his  own  in  his  whole  life. 
He  felt  dizzy. 

Then  all  at  once  he  gave  a  ringing  shout  of 
rapturous  joy. 

"  I  could  buy  the  violin  ! "  he  cried,  till  the 
vault  of  the  chamber  echoed. 

B   2 


244  SIGNA. 


It  was  to  him  as  if  he  could  buy  the  earth  and 
the  sun  and  the  planets. 

**  Yes  ;  you  can  buy  the  violin,"  said  Bruno. 

Signa  laughed  all  over  his  little  face  as  a  brook 
does  when  the  sun  and  wind  together  please  it ; 
he  was  beside  himself  Vith  bewildered  happiness. 
He  shouted,  he  leaped,  he  sang,  he  raced,  regard- 
less of  the  silence  and  sanctity  of  the  place,  till 
Bruno  hurried  him  away  fearful  that  the  good 
brethren  might  enter  and  be  displeased. 

**  What  did  the  paper  say  ?  you  have  forgotten 
the  paper,"  said  Bruno,  as  they  passed  the 
pharmacy,  where  the  monks  were  distilling  their 
sweet  odours  and  strong  waters  with  a  delicate 
fragrance  of  coriander  and  coromandel  seeds,  and 
of  dried  herbs  and  lemons  and  the  like,  upon 
the  air. 

Signa,  giddy  and  breathless,  unfolded  the 
crumpled  scrap  on  which  the  painter  had  written 
his  name  with  a  pencil,  his  surname — Istriel — 
curtly,  as  men  write  who  know  that  the  one 
word  tells  all  about  them  to  the  world. 

He  spelt  the  name  out  slowl}^,  but  the  line 
beneath  it  puzzled  him  ;  it  was  only  an  address 


SIGNA.  245 


in  Paris,  but  then  the  little  boy  did  not  know 
what  Paris  meant. 

He  crushed  the  slip  of  paper  together  with  the 
gold  and  ran  out  of  the  cool  vaulted  corridors, 
that  were  so  still  and  hushed  and  grey,  like 
twilight,  into  the  path  that  runs  down  the  vines. 

*'  I  can  buy  the  violin  !"  he  cried  to  the  bright 
sky ;  he  thought  that  the  sky  smiled  back  again. 

After  all  the  angels  had  had  thought  of  him. 

''  Oh  this  wonderful  day !"  he  shouted.  ''  Oh 
Bruno,  are  you  not  happy  that  we  came  ! " 

*'I  am  glad  if  you  are  glad,"  said  Bruno. 
And  that  was  the  truth  at  all  times.  Half  way 
down  the  hill  Signa  stopped  and  looked  back  to 
the  monastery. 

"I  forgot  to  thank  the  Holy  Child,"  he  said, 
with  sharp  contrition. 

"Where?  and  for  what?" 

*'The  little  Christ  in  the  picture  that  they 
called  Perugino — he  sent  me  this  to  buy  the 
violin.  I  am  sure  of  that.  He  smiled  at  me  all 
the  while  I  sang,  and  I  never  said  a  prayer  to 
thank  him.     Let  me  go  back." 

**  They  would  not  let  you  in ;  say  your  i)rayers 


246  SIGNA. 


to  him  at  home;  he  will  be  quite  as  pleased. 
But  it  was  the  painter  who  gave  you  the 
money." 

"  It  was  the  Holy  Child  sent  it,"  said  Signa, 
who  had  seen  so  many  frescoes  of  the  heavenly 
host  descending  to  mingle  in  the  lives  of  men, 
and  had  heard  so  many  miracles  and  legends,  that 
the  visible  interposition  of  Perugino's  Gesu  was 
only  such  a  thing  as  he  had  looked  for  natm-ally. 

Well,  the  Gesu  might,  why  not,  thought  Bruno, 
the  child  was  worthy  even  of  such  memory. 

He  did  not  know — it  seemed  presumptuous  to 
think  they  could  think  in  heaven  of  a  child's  wish 
for  a  wooden  toy ;  but  still,  who  could  tell  ? — it 
is  such  simple,  humble,  foolish  hopes  as  these 
that  keep  the  peasants'  hearts  and  backs  from 
breaking  under  the  burden  of  unending  toil. 
Untiring  intelligence  may  live  best  without  a 
faith,  but  tired  poverty  and  labour  must  have  one 
of  some  sort.  Called  by  what  name  it  may  be, 
it  is  the  selfsame  thing,  the  vague,  sad,  wistful 
hope  of  some  far  off,  but  certain,  compensation. 

To  Bruno,  indeed,  it  seemed  that  the  Gesu  had 
sanctioned  the  spending  of  a  vast  fortune  on  a 


SIGNA.  247 


mere  plaything ;  it  was  the  cost  of  a  sheep  or  of  a 
barrel  of  wine  ;  but  he  could  no  more  have  denied 
the  child  than  he  could  have  cut  his  hand  off — 
besides,  if  the  saints  willed  it. 

As  for  Signa,  he  had  no  doubt  that  heaven 
had  sent  it  to  him.  He  cried  and  laughed  in 
his  delight.  He  showed  his  gold  to  the  birds, 
to  the  frogs,  and  to  the  butterflies.  He  leaped 
from  stone  to  stone  in  the  water,  laughing  at  his 
own  image.  He  stopped  to  tell  every  contadino 
he  met,  and  every  fisherman  throwing  a  net  from 
the  canes.  He  ran  through  the  hedges  of  acacia 
and  clematis,  and  told  the  spiders  weaving  silver 
in  the  leaves.  He  stopped  to  tell  the  millers  at 
the  mill-house  over  the  river,  where  the  good 
men  leaned  out  of  a  little  square  window  with  the 
yellow  light  of  a  candle  behind  them,  and  above 
the  moss-gi'own  roof  the  apple  boughs  interlaced 
against  a  dreamy  blue  evening  sky,  like  a  Rem- 
brandt set  in  a  Raffaelle.  He  caught  a  big 
brown  velvet  stingless  bee,  and  whispered  it 
the  story,  and  let  it  go  free  to  carry  the  news 
before  him  to  the  swallows  in  the  Lastra ;  and 
when  he  came  to  the  red  cross  that  stands  on  a 


248  SIGNA. 


pile  of  stones,  where  the  Greve  is  broad  and 
green  under  the  high  woodlands,  where  the 
mighty  Acciajoli  once  reigned,  he  knelt  down 
and  said  the  praj^ers  he  had  forgotten,  while 
the  wind  chased  the  shadows  in  the  water,  and 
the  weir  and  the  waterwheel  sang  to  each  other. 

"Will  it  be  too  late  to  buy  it  to-night?  "  he 
said,  as  he  saw  Venus  rise  above  the  mountains 
from  the  sea. 

"Not  if  Tonino  be  not  in  bed,"  said  Bruno, 
who  never  could  bear  not  to  humour  the  child. 
So  they  walked  on  as  fast  as  they  could. 

"  You  are  tired  ?  "  said  Bruno.  "  If  j^ou  are 
tired  get  on  my  back." 

"  I  am  not  tired  !  "  laughed  the  child,  who  felt 
as  though  he  had  wings,  and  could  dart  all  the 
way  home  as  swiftly  and  straight  as  a  dragon- 
fly. It  was  quite  dark  when  they  reached  the 
Lastra. 

It  was  a  hot  night.  The  mosquitoes  and  the 
little  white  moths  were  whirling  round  the  few 
dusky  lamps.  There  were  lights  behind  the 
grated  windows,  and  darksome  doorways  lit  as 
Eembrandt  loved. 


SIGNA.  249 


The  men  stood  about  in  their  shii't-sleeves,  and 
the  women  lingered,  saying  good  night  as  they 
plaited  the  last  tress.  There  were  groups  in  the 
archways,  and  on  the  high  steps,  and  in  the 
bakers'  and  wine-sellers'  shops,  where  the  green 
boughs  were  drooping  after  the  heat  of  the  day. 
In  uncurtained  casements  only  Hghted  by  the 
moon  yomig  mothers  undressed  theii*  sucklings. 
There  was  a  smell  of  ripe  fruit,  of  drying 
hay,  of  fir-apples,  of  fresh  straw,  of  that  sea- 
scent  which  comes  here  upon  the  w^est  wind, 
and  of  magnolia  flowers  from  the  villas  on  the 
hills. 

Signa's  heart  beat  so  fast  he  felt  blind  as  he 
flew  under  the  gateway,  and  looked  to  see  if 
Tonino  had  shut  his  house  for  the  night. 

His  heart  leaped  in  him  as  he  saw  a  light  in  the 
place,  and  the  big  keys  magnified  in  the  shadow 
till  they  were  fit  for  the  very  keys  of  S.  Peter, 
and  in  the  door  the  locksmith  himself,  with 
bare  aims  and  eas}^  mind,  chatting  with  his 
neighbour,  Dionisio  the  cobbler. 

Signa  darted  to  him. 

"Give    it    me!     quick — quick — quick — oh. 


250  SIGNA. 


I)lease,  good  Tonino  !  "  he  panted.  "  See — here 
are  the  forty  francs — all  beautiful  real  gold — and 
the  fair  child  in  the  monastery  sent  it  to  me  to- 
day. Quick — quick,  oh  dear  Tonino  !  You  never 
have  sold  it  while  we  were  away  ?  " 

"  The  child  pleased  an  artist  to-day,  and  sat 
for  a  picture,  and  so  got  the  money.  Let  him  have 
the  toy,"  said  Bruno,  following,  to  the  astonished 
Tonino,  who  had  stretched  out  a  hand  by  sheer 
instinct  to  seize  the  boy,  making  sure  that  he 
had  stolen  something. 

"I  have  not  sold  it,"  he  said,  with  wide  open 
eyes.  "  But  buy  it — forty  francs  ! — the  like  of 
you,  you  little  bit  of  a  fellow !  It  cannot  be  I 
It  cannot  be  !  " 

"  Oh,  dear  Tonino !  "  cried  the  child, 
piteously,  and  he  began  to  tremble  all  over  with 
dread,  his  colour  went  and  came  hotly  and 
whitely  in  the  yellow  gleams  of  the  locksmith's 
brass  lamp  ;  and  he  could  hardly  speak  plain  for 
excitement,  with  both  his  hands  clinging  to  the 
man's  bare  arm.  "  Oh,  dear,  good  Tonino,  you 
never  have  sold  it  ?  oh  say  you  have  not  sold  it  ? 
Here  is  the  gold — beautiful  real  money,  and  you 


SIGNA.  251 


never  do  have  gold  in  Signa,  and  pray,  pray  do 
let  me  have  it  quick ;  I  have  longed  for  it  so. 
Oh,  you  never  will  know  how !  Only  I  said 
nothing  because  you  all  scolded  and  laughed  ; 
and  now,  perhaps,  you  have  sold  it— do  say  you 
have  not  sold  it?" 

And  Signa  broke  down,  crying  with  a  very 
rain  of  tears  in  the  reaction  from  this  immea- 
surable joy  to  fear. 

Bruno's  hand  fell  heavily  on  the  locksmith's 
shoulder. 

"  It  is  good  money.  You  cannot  refuse  your 
own  price.     Let  the  boy  have  the  fiddle." 

"  But  a  baby  like  that  !  "  stammered  Tonino. 
"  And  if  there  are  painters  about  that  pay  so, 
there  is  my  little  Ginna,  rich  and  rosy  as  a 
tomato,  and  how  can  you,  even  in  conscience,  let 
that  brat  squander  such  a  heap  of  wealth, — the 
price  of  a  calf  almost,  and  a  barrel  of  wme  quite, 
and  the  best  wine  in  the  commune  too  ;  and  sure 
he  ought  to  be  made  to  take  it  to  that  good  soul 
Lippo,  who  has  kept  him,  body  and  soul  toge- 
ther, all  these  years,  when  any  other  man  would 
have  let  such  a  little  mouse  drown  in  the  flood 


252  SIGNA. 


where  lie  came  from ;  and  I  do  not  think  I  could 
in  conscience  let  the  lad  throw  all  that  away, 
and  he  a  beggar,  one  may  say,  unless  I  speak 
to  Lippo  and  Nita  first,  and  they  be  willing, 
because " 

Bruno's  eyes  took  fire  with  that  sudden  light 
which  all  the  Lastra  had  dreaded  since  he  had 
been  a  stripling,  and  his  hand  went  inside  his 
shirt,  where,  about  the  belt  of  his  breeches,  he 
was  always  believed  to  carry  a  trusty  knife,  not- 
withstanding all  law  and  peril. 

**  Keep  your  conscience  for  your  neighbours* 
kettles  and  pans  that  you  send  home  with  new 
holes  when  you  solder  the  old  ones !  "  shouted 
Bruno.  "  Out  with  the  fiddle,  or  as  the  saints 
live  above  us,  choked  you  shall  be,  and  dead  as  a 
doornail.  Take  the  gold  and  fetch  me  the  toy, 
and  learn  to  preach  to  me  if  you  dare  !  '* 

**  But  in  conscience,"  stammered  the  lock- 
smith. 

*'  Give  the  child  the  playthuig,"  he  cried  in  a 
voice  of  thunder,  shaking  him  as  a  dog  does  a 
chicken,  **  or  it  shall  be  the  worse  for  you.  You 
know  me  !  " 


SIGNA.  253 


"  I  would  take  the  gold  when  I  could  get  it,  if 
I  were  you,  Tonino,"  whispered  the  cobbler,  who 
was  a  man  of  peace.  "  Gold  is  a  rare  sight  for 
sore  eyes  in  Signa,  and  what  is  Lippo  to 
you  ?  " 

"  That  is  true,"  murmured  the  tinman, 
frightened  out  of  his  wits,  and  thankful  for  any 
excuse  to  jaeld.  "  But  it  is  only  to-day  that  I 
heard  that  the  fiddle  is  worth  quite  double. 
There  is  a  great  singer  come  to  stay  at  one  of 
the  villas  who  saw  it — and  to  let  a  child  have  it 
who  will  break  it — nevertheless,  to  please  a 
neighbour " 

And  having  soothed  himself  a  little  with  this 
elaborate  and  useless  fiction,  as  his  country  folk 
will,  always  deriving  a  very  soothing  and  soften- 
ing effect  from  the  pleasure  of  l^^ing,  Tonino  went 
grumbling  within,  and  poked  about  with  his  dim 
lamp,  and  came  out  slowly  with  the  violin,  and 
clutched  the  two  gold  X3ieces  before  he  would  let 
it  go.  Signa,  who  stood  trembling  with  wild 
excitement,  took  the  precious  instrument  in  both 
his  hands  with  trembling  reverence,  the  tears 
falling  fast  down  his  cheeks. 


254  SIGNA. 


"Beast!  you  have  made  him  cry!'*  muttered 
Bruno,  and  kicked  the  tinman  into  his  own 
doorway  with  a  will,  and  laid  his  hand  on  the 
child's  shoulder,  and  strode  up  the  street  of  the 
Lastra,  glancing  from  right  to  left  with  mute 
challenge  if  any  man  should  have  the  courage  to 
stop  his  progress. 

No  one  attempted  to  call  him  to  account. 
Tonino  was  not  a  popular  man,  and  the  weight 
of  Bruno's  wrath  and  the  keenness  of  his  knife 
had  heen  felt  hy  more  than  one  of  the  eager, 
chattering  audience  who  leaned  out  of  the  win- 
dows and  crowded  each  other  in  the  doorways, 
in  breathless  hope  to  see  a  pretty  piece  of 
stabbing. 

Bruno  went  through  them  in  silence.  Signa 
trotted  by  his  side,  his  hands  clasping  the  violin 
to  his  chest,  and  his  great  eyes  dewy  with  tears, 
yet  radiant  as  jewels,  in  his  joy. 

Tonino  grumbled  that  if  a  man  made  such  a 
sweet  morsel  of  his  own  bastard  he  should  not 
be  above  the  owning  of  it,  and  went  to  his  bed 
with  sore  bones  and  a  grieved  heart  that  he  had 
not   asked   double   for   the   fiddle;    though   for 


SIGNA.  255 


more   years  than   he    could    remember   he   had 
always  thought  it  worthless  lumber. 

Bruno  and  Signa  went  up  the  street  in  the 
moonlight,  with  yellow  flashes  now  and  then  fall- 
ing across  them  from  the  lamps  swinging  in  the 
doorways. 

"Where  will  you  play  on  it,  dear  little  lad," 
said  Bruno,  gently,  "  if  you  take  it  home  ?  " 

The  child  looked  at  him  with  the  smile  of  a 
child  dreaming  beautiful  things  in  its  slumber. 

"  I  will  keep  it  at  old  Teresina's.  She  will  let 
me,  and  I  will  bring  it  to  you  when  I  come.  Oh  ! 
is  it  really,  really  true  that  I  have  got  it  ?  " 

"  Quite  true ;  and  it  is  dearer  to  you  already 
than  the  old  lute,  Signa  ?  " 

Signa  was  silent.  Bruno  had  given  him  the 
lute. 

They  passed  out  of  the  Lastra  and  along  the 
road  into  the  street  that  curves  towards  the 
bridge  ;  it  was  quite  dark ;  but  at  the  little  cafe 
there  which  looks  towards  the  river,  several  men 
were  drinking  and  playing  dominoes  on  the 
stones  by  the  feeble  light  of  the  brass  oil-lamps. 
Bruno  saw  Lippo  amongst  them. 


256  ,  SIGNA. 


He  put  his  own  tall  form  witli  the  dark  cloud 
of  his  brown  cloak  between  Lippo  and  the  child, 
and  strode  on  carelessly  without  stopping. 

"  Good  night,"  he  called  out,  "I  am  taking  the 
boy  up  with  me.  I  want  him  to  help  stack 
wheat,  and  he  will  have  to  be  up  at  four,  so  he 
had  best  sleej)  on  the  hill." 

Lippo  nodded,  and  hardly  looked  up  from  his 
dominoes. 

They  went  on  over  the  bridge  unquestioned. 

The  bridge  had  many  groups  upon  it  as  on  all 
hot  nights;  leaning  against  the  parapets,  and 
chatting' in  the  cheerful,  garrulous  Tuscan  fashion. 
The  moon  was  bright  on  the  wide  reaches  of  the 
river.     The  sky  was  studded  with  stars. 

On  a  summer  night  Signa  loses  her  scars  of 
war  and  age,  and  is  young  as  when  Hercules 
shook  her  sunny  waters  from  his  sunny  locks ; 
resting  from  labour. 

The  child  looked  up  at  the  stars.  He  won- 
dered if  ever  in  all  the  world  there  had  been  so 
happy  a  thing  as  he.  And  yet  he  could  only  see 
the  stars  through  his  tears;  he  did  not  know 
why  the  tears  came. 


SIGNA.  257 

An  aziola  owl  went  by  with  its  soft  cry, 

*'  Such  as  nor  voice  nor  lute  nor  wind  nor  bird 
The  soul  ever  stirred, 
Unlike  and  far  sweeter  than  they  all. " 

*'  Oh,  dear  Chiu  !  "  said  Signa  to  the  owl, 
calling  it  by  the  familiar  name  that  the  people 
give  it,  "  will  you  tell  the  little  Christ  how  happy 
I  am,  and  the  old  dead  bishop  too  ?  They  may 
think  I  am  thankless  because  I  cry.  Do  tell 
them,  Chiu,  you  go  so  near  the  sky !  " 

"  What  fancies  you  have,"  said  Bruno  ;  but 
the  little  brow^n  hand  was  hot  as  it  touched  his 
own.  *'You  are  tired  and  excited,"  he  said 
more  gravely.  "  You  dream  too  much  about 
odd  things.  That  owl  is  hunting  gnats  and 
mice,  and  not  thinking  about  the  angels." 

"  I  am  not  tired,"  said  Signa,  but  he  was 
walldng  lame,  and  his  voice  was  weak  and 
trembled. 

Bruno,  without  asking  him,  lifted  him  up  in 
his  arms  ;  he  himself  was  a  strong  man,  and  the 
light  burden  of  the  thin  little  lad  was  a  small  one 
to  him. 

"Go  to  sleep,  I  will  carry  you  up  the  hill," 

VOL.  I.  S 


258  SIGNA. 


he  said,  putting  the  child's  head  down  against 
his  shoulder.  Signa  did  not  resist.  He  still 
clasped  the  violin  to  him. 

Bruno  went  up  the  steep  road  where  his 
mother  had  carried  him  through  the  darkness 
and  cold  before  she  stumbled  and  fell. 

With  fever  and  fatigue  Signa  dropped  asleep, 
and  did  not  awaken  all  the  way  up  the  long  lonely 
paths  through  the  vines  and  the  reapen  fields. 

"  How  he  loves  that  thing  already — as  never  he 
will  love  me,"  thought  Bruno,  looking  down  at 
him  in  the  starlight  with  that  dull  sense  of  hope- 
less rivalry  and  alien  inferiority  which  the  self- 
absorption  of  genius  inflicts  innocently  and  uncon- 
sciously on  the  human  affections  that  cling  to  it, 
and  which  later  on  Love  avenges  upon  it  in  the 
same  manner. 

Bruno,  nevertheless,  was  glad  that  he  had  it. 
Fierce  and  selfish  in  all  his  earlier  life,  he  had 
taught  himself  to  be  gentle  and  unselfish  to 
Pippa's  son.  He  carried  him  into  the  house, 
still  sleeping,  and  laid  him  down  under  the 
crucifix  on  a  pile  of  hay,  and  would  have  un- 
dressed him,  but  the  child  murmuring,   resisted. 


SIGN  A.  259 


clasping  the  violin  to  him,  as  though  in  his 
sleep,  afraid  that  anj^one  should  take  it  from 
him. 

So  Bruno  left  him  as  he  was  upon  the  hay 
with  his  tumbled  curls  and  his  vioHn  folded  in 
his  crossed  arms,  in  the  deep  dreamless  slumber 
of  a  great  fatigue,  and  Ht  a  lanthorn  and  went 
round  to  fodder  the  cow  and  see  to  the  ass,  and 
make  sure  that  all  had  been  safe  dmdng  his 
absence,  and  then,  with  his  loaded  gun  beside 
him,  laid  down  to  rest  himself. 

He  had  not  been  asleep  an  hour  himself, 
before  he  was  awakened  by  silvery  sweet  music 
that  seemed  to  him  to  be  like  the  voices  of  all 
the  nightingales  in  May  singing  together;  but 
the  nightingales  were  most  of  them  dumb  now 
— now  that  the  lilies  were  dead,  and  the  hay 
oarnered. 

Brmio  started  up  and  listened  and  looked  ; 
he  too  beheved  in  a  dim  sort  of  way  in  the 
angels ;  only  he  never  saw  them  come  down  on 
the  slant  of  the  sun-rays  as  the  good  men  had 
done  that  had  decorated  the  churches. 

The  moon  was  shinmg  into  the  house;  by  the 

s  2 


260  SIGNA. 


white  cool  light  he  saw  that  it  was  the  child 
sitting  up  in  the  hay  and  j^laying.  Signa's  eyes 
were  open  and  lustrous,  but  they  had  a  look  in 
them  as  if  he  were  dreaming. 

His  chin  was  resting  on  the  violin,  his  little 
hands  fingered  the  keys  and  the  bow ;  his  face 
was  very  pale ;  he  looked  straight  before  him  ; 
he  played  in  his  sleep. 

Bruno  listened  aghast ;  he  had  a  melodious 
ear  himself,  the  music  was  never  wrong  in  a 
chord;  it  was  sweet  as  all  the  nightingales  in 
the  country  singing  all  together. 

He  dared  not  wake  the  boy,  who  jDlayed  on 
and  on  in  the  moonlight. 

*'  It  is  the  gift  of  God,"  thought  Bruno,  awed 
and  sorrowful;  because  a  gift  of  God  put  the 
child  farther  and  farther  from  him. 

He  listened,  resting  on  one  arm,  while  the 
owls  cried  *'  Woe  !  "  from  the  great  walnut  trees 
over  the  house-roof.  The  sweet  melody  seemed 
to  fill  the  place  with  wonder,  and  to  live  in  the 
quivering  rays  of  the  moon,  and  to  pass  out  with 
them  through  the  lattice  amongst  the  leaves,  and 
so  go  straight  to  the  stars. 


SIGNA.  261 


A  little  while,  and  it  faltered  a  moment,  and 
then  ceased.  Signa's  head  dropped  back,  his 
eyes  closed,  his  hands  let  the  violin  sink  gentl}^ 
down ;  he  slept  again  as  other  children  sleep. 

"It  is  a  gift  of  God;  one  cannot  go  against 
God,"  said  Bruno,  making  the  sign  of  the  cross  on 
his  own  broad  breast.  And  he  was  very  sorrow- 
ful ;  and  yet  proud ;  and  could  not  bear  that  it 
should  be  so,  and  yet  would  not  have  had  it  other- 
wise ;  as  men  were  in  the  old  days  of  faith  whose 
sons  and  daughters  went  out  to  martyrdom. 

When  he  got  up  to  his  labour  before  the  sun 
was  up,  and  while  the  faintest  rose-red  alone 
glowed  beyond  the  mountains  in  the  east,  he 
stepped  noiselessly  not  to  awaken  the  boy,  and 
left  him  sleeping  while  he  went  out  to  his  work 
at  the  stacking  of  corn,  with  the  earth  dim  with 
shadow  and  silvered  with  dew. 

He  thought  of  the  child  and  the  gifts  of  God. 
He  did  not  know  that  he  had  seen  Pippa's 
lover. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


"  Where  is  the  little  bit  of  paper  with  the  name 
on  ?  "  said  Bruno,  eating  his  bit  of  black  bread 
when  the  morning  was  up  wide  and  golden  over 
all  the  harvest  land. 

Signa  lifted  up  his  head  from  his  violin.  ''  I 
lost  it.  When  I  caught  the  bee,  coming  home, 
the  paper  flew  away ;  the  winds  took  it ;  does  it 
matter?" 

*^  No.  Only  it  might  have  been  a  friend  for 
you.     Do  you  recollect  the  name  ?  " 

Signa  shook  his  curly  head. 

Recollect  anything  ! — with  the  violin  in  his 
hand,  and  the  music  dancing  out  on  the  sun- 
beams, and  saying  everything  for  him  that  he 
never  could  say  for  himself. 


SIGN  A.  263 


What  was  the  name  to  him  ?  the  giver  of  the 
gold  had  only  heen  the  ministrant  of  the  little 
Christ. 

Bruno  let  him  alone. 

The  boy  was  so  happy ;  sitting  in  the  shade 
there,  trying  all  cadences  that  came  to  him  on  this 
new,  precious,  wondrous  thing :  he  had  not  the 
heart  to  call  him  to  come  out  in  the  sun  and  carry 
the  wheat. 

He  had  been  too  rough  with  Pippa.  He  atoned 
by  being  too  gentle  with  this  child. 

So  he  went  out  into  the  fields  again  by  himself, 
and  built  up  his  stacks,  made  low  because  of  the 
hurricanes  that  come  over  when  there  are  white 
squalls  upon  the  sea,  and  covered  till  there  should 
be  time  to  thatch  them,  with  snowy  Imen  cloths, 
so  that  they  look  like  huge  mushrooms  growing 
for  the  table  of  Gargantua. 

When  he  had  been  at  work  some  two  or  three 
hours,  hearing  at  intervals,  when  the  wmd  blew 
it  towards  him,  the  song  of  the  violin  that 
the  boy  was  enjo3dng  within  with  the  cow  in  her 
shed,  and  the  sitting  hens,  and  the  tethered  goat 
and  her  kid  for  listeners,  he  heard  the  little  feet 


264  SIGNA. 


that  he  knew  patter  over  the  stuhble,  and  from 
his  half  completed  stack  looked  down  on  Signa's 
upraised  face. 

The  child  had  the  violin  with  him. 

"  Brmio,"  he  asked  shyly/' I  have  been  think- 
ing— there  is  old  Nunziata  often  without  bread, 
and  Giudetta,  whose  children  all  died  of  those 
poison  berries,  and  Stagno  the  blind  man,  that 
has  no  legs  either,  and — and  so  many  of  them  that 
want  so  much,  and  are  only  hungry  and  sad — 
was  it  selfish  of  me  not  to  give  them  the  money 
between  them — was  it  wicked  to  have  the  violin  ? 
I  am  sure  the  angels  meant  the  violin,  you  know  ; 
but  still  did  the  angels  wish  me  to  think  of  others 
or  all  of  myself  ?  What  do  you  think  ?  Do  you 
think  I  was  wrong  ?  " 

"Anyway  it  is  too  late  now,  bambino,"  said 
Bruno,  with  the  curtness  of  his  natural  speech. 
"  You  have  wanted  the  violin  a  year,  why  spoil 
the  pleasure  of  it?" 

*'  But  was  it  selfish  ?  "  persisted  Signa. 

"  Why  worry  yourself ;   it  is  done  ?  " 

"  But  it  was,  then  ?  "  cried  the  little  fellow, 
with  a  sort  of  feverish  pain. 


8IGNA.  265 


Bruno  came  down  the  ladder  and  took  up  more 
corn. 

"  Oh,  no ;  you  things  that  love  sounds  or 
sights  or  bits  of  wood  or  oils  and  earths  better 
than  human  creatures,  alwa3's  are  selfish,  so. 
But  I  don't  know  why  ever  you  should  be 
blamed.  There  is  no  more  selfish  beast  than  a 
cow  with  her  calf,  or  a  woman  with  her  wean. 
Why  should  you  not  have  your  fiddle  like  that ; 
only  you  will  be  like  Frisco.  I  knew  Frisco — 
he  thought  of  nothing  but  saving  every  scrap  of 
money  to  buy  things  to  paint  with,  and  he  was 
always  after  the  churches  and  gateways  and  places 
where  the  colours  are ;  and  he  said  it  was  a  fine 
gift,  and  a  glorious  one.  I  am  not  saying  it  was. 
not ;  only  he  went  away  and  left  his  old  mother 
to  be  kept  by  the  commune,  and  j)eople  say  he  is 
a  great  man  away  in  Bome ;  but  the  old  soul  is 
dead  and  never  saw^  him  again.  Not  that  it  is  for 
me  to  say  evil  of  any  man." 

"  But  I  have  no  mother,"  said  Signa. 

Bruno  shrank  as  though  a  grass  adder  had 
stung  him ;  and  stooi)ed  and  gathered  more  corn 
again. 


266  SIGNA. 


"  No,  dear,"  lie  said,  after  a  moment,  very 
gently,  "  make  a  mother  of  yom-  music  if  you  can. 
The  good  God  gave  it  you  in  her  stead.  And  it 
is  not  selfish,  dear ;  you  praise  heaven  in  it,  and 
make  the  children  dance  with  joy,  and  the  old 
folks  forget  they  are  old  when  they  hear  you. 
Do  they  not  say  so  in  the  Lastra  a  thousand 
times  ?  Do  not  fret  yourself,  Signa.  The  angels 
sent  you  the  fiddle.  Be  glad  in  it.  To  quarrel 
with  happiness  is  to  quarrel  with  God.  It  is  but 
seldom  he  sends  any;  perhaps  he  would  send 
more,  only  whenever  they  get  it  people  spoil  it 
by  fuming  and  fretting,  as  a  bad  spinner  knots 
the  smooth  flax.  Pla}^  to  the  sick  folk  and  the  old 
and  the  sorrowful.  That  will  be  the  way  to  please 
the  little  Christ." 

Signa  was  comforted,  and  sat  down  amongst  the 
loose  wheat  and  played  all  his  little  fancies  away 
on  those  strings  that  were  to  him  as  of  silver  and 
gold,  whilst  the  cicale  buzzed  in  chorus  in  the 
tree-tops,  and  all  the  field  finches  strained  their 
pretty  throats  in  rivalry. 

But  he  did  not  play  gaily  as  he  had  done  in 
the  house.     He  was   afraid  the    Gesu  was  not 


SIGNA.  267 

content;  and  why  had  he  no  mother  as  other 
boys  had  ? 

Bruno,  working  on  the  top  of  his  golden  rick 
could  have  bitten  his  own  tongue  out  for  having 
reminded  the  child  of  that. 

Signa  never  asked  any  questions.  They  had 
told  him  he  had  come  on  the  wave  of  the  flood, 
and  for  himself  he  thought  that  the  owls  had 
dropped  him  there.  But  then  it  was  never  of 
any  use  to  ask  an  owl.  They  never  said  anything 
to  any  one,  except  ''  Chiu,  chiu ! "    "  Woe,  woe ! " 

Bruno  sent  him  away  at  sunset,  with  a  big 
basket  of  beans  and  cabbages  for  Nita,  to  pro- 
pitiate her  into  good  humom\ 

It  was  cheating  his  lord,  because  it  is  under- 
stood that  what  a  contadino  takes  for  eating  shall 
be  what  is  needed  in  his  own  house ;  but  Bruno 
did  not  see  harm  in  it ;  the  men  who  would  not 
take  a  crumb  out  of  theii*  master's  dwelling  for 
all  the  temptings  of  the  worst  hunger,  will  never 
see  any  sin  in  taking  things  off  the  soil  they  labour 
on,  and  Bruno  was  no  better  than  his  neighbours. 
Besides,  he  would  have  done  a  wrong  thing 
knowingly,  to  serve  or  help  the  child. 


268  SIGNA. 


"I  should  love  him  little  if  I  would  not  take 
a  sin  on  my  own  soul  for  his  welfare,"  he  said  to 
himself  often ;  that  was  his  idea  of  how  he  ought 
to  keep  his  word  to  Pippa.  He  did  not  argue  it 
out  so  clearly  as  that,  hecause  peasants  do 
not  analyse,  hut  the  sense  of  it  moved  him 
always. 

So  Signa  kissed  his  old  lute  in  farewell,  and  laid 
it  away  on  the  old  marriage  box  under  the  crucifix, 
and  sprinkled  rose-leaves  on  it  and  meadow  mint, 
hecause  he  fancied  it  would  like  sweet  smells,  and 
then  shouldered  his  big  skip  full  of  vegetables, 
and  made  his  way  down  the  hill,  hugging  the 
violin  close  to  him. 

The  waning  moon  hung  silvery  and  round  over 
the  town  as  he  entered.  In  many  of  the  interiors 
and  in  the  stone  barns  the  men  were  thrashing, 
the  flails  heaving  and  falling  in  pleasant  regular 
cadence,  the  workers  knee-deep  in  the  yellow 
grain.  A  few  machines  hum  in  Tuscany,  but 
they  are  very  few ;  they  fear  to  spoil  the  straw 
for  the  plaiters,  and  they  cling  still  to  the  old 
waj^s,  these  sons  of  Ceres  Mammosa. 

The  rush  skip  on  his  back  was  heavy,  but  his 


SIGNA.  269 


heai-t  was  light  as  lie  went.  The  wonderful 
wooden  thing  that  he  could  make  sing  like  a 
nightingale  was  all  his  own  for  ever. 

Only  to  think  what  he  could  do ;  all  that  he 
heard — and  he  heard  so  much  from  the  birds  and 
the  bees  and  the  winds  at  dawn,  and  the  owls  at 
night,  and  the  whispering  canes  and  the  poplars 
down  by  the  water,  and  the  bells  that  swing  for 
prayer—he  could  tell  again  on  those  wonderful 
strings,  of  whose  power  and  pathos  the  child,  all 
untaught,  had  a  true  intuition. 

With  the  violin  against  his  shoulder  he  felt 
strong  enough  to  face  the  world  and  wander  over 
it — ten  years  old  only  though  he  was,  and  of  no 
more  account  than  a  little  moth,  that  a  man  can 
kill  with  the  wave  of  the  hand. 

The  fancy  came  once  to  him  to  go  away,  with 
the  wooden  Rusignuolo,  as  he  called  it,  and  see 
what  people  would  do  to  him,  and  what  beautiful 
things  he  could  hear,  going  along  the  roads,  and 
into  the  strange  streets,  playing.  If  only  he  had 
not  loved  the  town  so  well ;  but  every  stone  of 
the  Lastra  was  dear  to  him.  They  held  his  feet 
to  the  soil. 


270  SIGNA. 


And,  besides,  he  was  only  a  little  child,  and 
the  mountains  looked  too  high  for  him  to  climb, 
though  those  old  painters,  he  knew,  must  have 
gone  higher  still,  or  how  could  they  have  seen 
the  clouds  and  the  little  angels  and  amorini  that 
dwell  in  the  worlds  where  the  rose  never  fades 
and  the  light  never  ceases  ? 

But  neither  mountains  nor  clouds  were  within 
his  reach,  so  he  only  trotted  down  into  the  Lastra 
with  his  skip  of  cabbages  and  beans  upon  his 
little  tired  back,  very  happy  because  he  had  his 
heart's  desire  ;  and  if  he  had  been  selfish  he  had 
asked  to  be  forgiven — none  of  us  can  do  more. 

All  people  were  still  astir  in  the  place;  by 
eight  of  the  clock  it  is  nearly  dark  under  these 
hills  when  once  the  day  of  SS.  Peter  and  Paul  is 
past ;  they  were  sitting  about  in  the  street,  the 
doorways  showed  the  golden  straw  that  the  girls 
were  still  sorting;  there  was  the  smell  of  the  fields 
everywhere  ;  oxen  in  red  waggons  crept  through 
the  twilight  taking  grain  to  the  thrashing  barns  ; 
men  came  in  from  the  river- side  with  their  nets 
wet  and  their  bare  legs  shining  with  sand,  and 
their  pumpkin  gourds   full   of  little  fish ;    here 


SIGNA.  271 


and  there  was  a  brown  monk  with  his  huge  straw 
hat  on  his  shoulders  and  his  rosary  dangling  in 
front  of  his  knees. 

He  nodded  up  at  old  Teresina ;  eighty  years 
old  and  spinning  at  a  high  window  under  the 
gateway ;  she  would  let  him  go  and  play  his 
violin  there  in  her  little  dusky  den,  among  the  ropes 
of  onions  and  the  strings  of  drying  tomatoes,  and 
with  the  one  little  square  lattice  looking  out  to 
the  bold  mountain  of  the  high  Albano  range  that 
rises  above  Artimino  and  Carmignano,  and  takes 
all  the  rose  of  the  dawn,  and  all  the  purples  of 
the  storm,  and  wears  them  as  its  own,  and  has 
the  sun  go  down  behind  it  and  the  star  of  love 
rise  from  it. 

Then  he  ran  up  the  little  dark  stairs  into  the 
room  where  she  lived ;  a  bright  old  soul  with 
many  daughters  and  sons  and  grandchildren 
scattered  over  the  place ;  a  good  spinner  and 
good  plaiter  still,  though  nigh  eighty  years  old, 
she  had  spent  all  her  years  here  under  the 
western  gate,  seeing  the  harvest  waggons  and 
the  grape  barrels  come  and  go  for  nearly  three - 
fourths  of  a  century ;  she  could  remember  the 


272  SIGNA. 


Frencli  fellows  with  Murat  riding  through ;  she 

had  sat  at  her  window  and  watched  them ;  she 

had  just  married  then ;    she  had  seen  the  sun 

sink  down  over  the  mountains  calm  and  golden, 

or  red  and  threatening,  every  night  of  her  life ; 

and  had  never  slept  elsewhere  than  here,  where 

the  warders  had  lighted  their  beacons  and  pointed 

their  matchlocks  in  the  old  days  long  before  her, 

when  news  came  that  the  Pisans  were  marching 

from  the  sea ;  the  Lastra  was  her  world,  but  it 

had  been  wide  enough  to  make,  her  shrewd  and 

keen  of  sight,  and  happy   enough   to   keep  her 

kindly  of  temper  and  of  quick  sympathy  with 

youth  and  childhood. 

Of  the  child  Signa  she  was  very  fond ;  she 
liked  to  be  woke  in  the  dark  mornings  by  his 
fresh  voice  carolling  some  field  song  of  the  people 
as  he  went  out  under  the  gateway  to  his  work. 
And  she  was  one  of  the  few  folks  who  liked  Bruno 
better  than  his  gentler  brother. 

'*  I  have  seen  them  both  with  their  bullocks 
when  they  were  lads,"  she  would  say  to  her  neigh- 
bours. *'  Bruno  made  his  do  a  hard  day's  work, 
but  he  fed  them  well  and  never  galled  them,  and 


SIGN  A.  273 


the  beasts  loved  liiiii.  Lippo  would  hang  his 
with  tassels  and  flowers,  and  pat  them  if  people 
were  looking  !  but  he  would  x^rick  them  twenty* 
times  an  hour  and  steal  their  fodder  and  sell  it 
for  a  pemi}'  and  play  morra.  Do  not  talk  to 
me  !  the  fierce  one  for  my  money  !  " 

So  when  Signa  ran  in  to  her  and  told  her  the 
story  of  the  violin,  not  very  coherently,  mingling 
the  tinman  and  the  Httle  Christ  and  the  gold  pieces 
and  the  marble  bishop  all  together  in  an  inex- 
tricable entanglement,  Teresina  was  sympathetic 
and  held  up  her  hands,  and  believed  in  the  angels 
and  wondered  at  the  beautiful  gift  with  all  the 
ardom'  that  he  could  have  desired,  and  said  of 
course,  to  be  sure  he  might  keep  it  there  ;  why 
not  ?  and  play  it  there  too,  she  hoped,  and  opened 
for  its  safer  concealment  the  heavy  lid  of  a  great 
chest  she  had  in  her  chamber;  one  of  those 
sarcophagus-like  coffers,  which  the  Middle  Ages 
made  in  such  numbers  and  ornamented  Avith  such 
lavish  care  ;  this  one  was  of  oak  wood,  very  old  ; 
and  a  hungry  connoissieur  had  told  her  that  it 
was  of  the  workmanship  of  Dello  and  had  offered 
her  any  money  for  it ;  but  she  had  told  him  that 


274  SIGNA. 


Dello,  whoever  he  was,  was  nothing  to  her,  and 
that  the  chest  had  held  her  bridal  linen  and  now 
held  her  cere- clothes  all  ready,  and  all  of  her  own 
spinning,  and  would  hold  her  granddaughters' 
and  great  granddaughters'  after  her,  she  hoped. 

So  the  chest,  whether  of  Dello  or  not,  remained 
in  its  corner,  and  she  opened  it  and  let  Signa  lay 
his  Eusignuolo  in  it  on  her  bridal  sheets,  and 
her  shroud,  that  she  had  finished  last  winter  and 
was  very  proud  of,  and  helped  him  cover  it  with 
the  dead  rose  leaves  and  the  sprigs  of  lavender, 
which  she  had  put  there  to  keep  moth  awa}^  and 
the  bough  of  cypress  which  she  had  laid  there 
to  bring  good  luck. 

So  Signa,  quite  sure  that  all  was  safe,  went  away 
quite  happy  and  shouldered  his  kreel  again,  and 
went  towards  Lippo's  house. 

Signa  turned  up  by  the  old  shrine  that  has  the 
grey  wood  door  and  the  soft  pink  colour  and  the 
frescoed  seraphs  by  the  high  south  gate,  and 
mounted  the  paved  steep  lane  to  Lippo's  house. 

There  was  a  little  gossipping  crowd  before  it  ; 
oldBaldo  with  his  horn  spectacles  shoved  up  on  his 
forehead,  andMomothe  barber,  who  had  a  tongue 


SIGNA,  275 


for  twenty,  and  Caccarello,  the  coppersmith,  and 
several  women,  foremost  of  whom  was  Nita 
screaming  at  the  top  of  her  voice,  with  both  hands 
in  air  in  gesticulation,  and  Toto  beating  the 
drum  tattoo  with  a  metal  spoon  on  a  big  frying- 
pan  as  a  sort  of  chorus  to  his  mother's  cries. 

Whilst  still  he  toiled  up  the  lane  concealed 
from  their  view  by  his  burden  of  cabbages,  he 
caught  her  flying  sentences,  scattered  like  dry 
peas  rolhng  out  of  a  basket. 

"  Two  hundred  francs  in  gold  !  given  him,  all 
for  his  peaking  little  face,  and  thrown  awaj' — 
thrown  away — thrown  aw^ay  on  a  wretched  creak- 
ing thing  that  Tonino  kept  amongst  his  nails 
and  his  kej's  !  and  never  a  centime  brought  to 
us  !  to  i^eople  that  took  him  out  of  the  water  hke 
a  half-drowned  pup  and  have  spent  our  substance 
on  him  ever  since  as  if  he  were  our  own.  Oh, 
the  little  viper ! — fed  at  my  breast  as  he  was  and 
laid  in  the  cradle  with  my  own  precious  boy  ! 
Two  hundred  francs  all  in  gold — all  in  gold  ! 
and  the  horrid  little  wretch  squanders  it  on  a  toy 
with  a  hole  in  it  for  the  wind  to  come  out  of, 
squeaking  like  a  mouse  in  a  trap.     But  there 

T  2 


276  SIGN  A. 


must  be  law  on  it — there  must  be  law  !  that  brute 
Tomno  could  not  claim  a  right  to  take  such 
swarms  of  mone}^  from  a  pauper  brat !  " 

"  Naj?-,"  said  the  barber.  "  Tonino  tells  us  he 
swore  his  conscience  was  hair  on  end  at  such  a 
thing.  But  when  a  man  has  a  knife  at  his 
throat—" 

"I  saw  the  steel  touch  him,  so  he  shivered," 
swore  Caccarello,  the  coppersmith. 

"  And  the  fiddle  was  worth  a  thousand  francs. 
It  was  a  rare  Cremona,"  whined  the  barber.  "  It 
is  poor  Tonino  that  is  cheated — near  as  bad  as 
you,  dear  neighbour  !  " 

"But  the  mone}^  was  not  the  little  brat's,  it 
belonged  to  those  who  nourished  and  housed 
him,"  said  a  fat  housewife,  who  often  gossipped 
with  Baldo  over  a  nice  little  mess  of  oil  and 
onions. 

"  That,  of  course,"  said  Caccarello.  "But  Lippo 
is  so  meek  and  mild.  He  has  cockered  up  that 
flyblow  as  if  it  were  a  prince's  lawfully-begotten 
son  and  heir." 

"Lippo  is  a  heaven-accursed  fool,"  said  old 
Baldo,  with   a  blow  of  his  staff — he  was  never 


SIGN  A.  277 


weaiy  of  telling  liis  opinion  of  his  son-in-law — 
"'  but  lie  is  not  to  blame  here.  He  never  could 
have  fancied  that  a  little  beast  would  come  home 
with  the  price  of  a  prime  bullock  and  go  and 
waste  it  on  a  fiddle  without  a  thought  of  by  your 
leave  or  for  your  leave,  or  any  remembrance  of  all 
he  owed  in  common  gratitude  for  bed  and  bread. 
The  child  could  be  put  in  prison,  and  so  he  ought 
to  be  ;  what  is  a  foundling's  gain  belongs  to  those 
that  feed  him.  That  is  fair  law  everywhere.  If 
Lippo  were  not  daft  he  would  hand  the  boy  over 
to  the  law  and  let  it  deal  with  him." 

"  Bravo  !  "  said  the  little  crowd,  in  chorus ;  for 
Baldo  was  a  well-to-do  old  man  and  much  re- 
spected, wearing  a  silk  hat  and  velvet  waistcoat 
upon  feast-days. 

"  Aj,  truly,  "  said  Nita,  stretching  her  brawny 
brown  arms  in  all  the  relish  of  anticipated  ven- 
geance, while  Toto  beat  louder  on  his  frying-pan, 
and  called  in  glee  : 

"And  you  will  shave  his  head  now  mother  ?  and 
give  me  that  gilt  ball  of  his  to  sell  ?  and  when 
his  back  is  raw  as  raw,  you  will  let  me  rub  the 
salt  in  it  ?  " 


SIGNA. 


Nita  kissed  liis  shaven  crown,  forgetful  of  the 
character  for  goodness  that  she  had  been  at  such 
pains  to  build  up  before  her  townsfolk ;  but 
Lippo,  mindful  of  his  fair  repute,  reproved 
him. 

"  Only  a  little  wholesome  chastisement :  that  is 
all  we  ever  allow ;  you  know  that,  my  son." 

And  Toto  gi-inned.  He  knew  his  father's 
tricks  of  speech. 

The  neighbours  thought  nothing  of  it;  take 
a  brat  off  the  face  of  the  flood  and  bring  it  up 
out  of  charity,  and  then  see  it  squander  the 
first  money  that  it  touched  upon  a  fiddle,  with- 
out so  much  as  bringing  home  a  farthing !  They 
were  unanimously  of  opinion  that  it  w^ould 
have  provoked  a  saint  into  exchanging  her  palm- 
sheaf  for  a  rod  of  iron. 

A  fiddle  too,  that  Tonino  swore  w^as 
worth  a  thousand  francs,  if  one,  and  a  purest 
old  Cremona ;  as  if  an  oat  pipe  cut  in  the 
fields  were  not  good  enough  for  this  little  cur 
picked  out  of  the  muddy  water  !  And  then  they 
all  of  them  had  children  too  ;  pretty  children,  or, 
at  least,   children  they  all  thought  pretty,  and 


SIGJSTA.  279 


where  was  ever  a  painter  found  to  give  them 
money  for  their  faces  ? 

Money  was  scarce  in  the  Lastra,  and 
popular  feeling  ran  strong  and  high  against 
Signa  for  having  ventured  to  have  a  piece  of 
good  fortune  fall  upon  him.  If  he  had  brought  it 
home  now  and  put  it  in  Lippo's  strong  box  and 
Lippo  had  given  them  all  a  supper  with  it,  and 
played  a  quarter  of  it  away  in  morra  or  draughts, 
as  no  doubt  he  would  have  done,  then,  indeed,  they 
might  have  pardoned  it.  But  a  fiddle  !  and  not 
a  single  centime  for  themselves  ! 

"  Punish  him  I  will,"  murmui*ed  Lippo,  goaded 
to  desperation,  but  thinking  woefully  of  what  his 
brother  would  say,  or,  worse  still,  do,  on  his  own 
skin  and  bones.  "  Still,  he  is  such  a  little  thing, 
and  saved  by  me,  as  one  may  say — not  that  I 
take  merit.  It  is  a  horrible  thing — all  that  good 
gold  squandered  on  a  fiddle,  and  we  robbing  our 
precious  children  nine  long  years  to  feed  a 
bastard  deserted  by  those  that  had  the  right; 
and  yet,  dear  friends,  a  child  no  older  than  my 
Toto " 

"  Maudhn  ass,"  quoth  Baldo  in  high  wrath, 


280  SIGN  A. 


while  tlie  barber  said  that  Lippo  was  too  great 
a  saint  to  live,  and  the  others  answered  that  such 
goodness  was  beautiful,  but  Lippo  must  look  at 
home ;  and  all  the  while  Nita  screamed  on  to  the 
night  air,  bewailing. 

Signa  heard,  as  he  laboured  up  the  hill  be- 
neath his  load  of  cabbages,  the  angry  voices 
rolling  down  the  slope  and  drifting  to  the  Ma- 
donna sitting  with  the  glory  round  her  head 
behind  her  little  wooden  wicket. 

The  poor  Madonna  often  heard  such  words. 
When  they  had  spoken  them  worst  they  gave  her 
flowers. 

Signa  heard.  What  had  he  done  ?  That  the}^ 
had  power  to  put  him  in  prison  he  never  doubted. 
They  had  power  to  beat  him — why  not  to  do 
anything  else  ? 

His  limbs  shook  and  his  heart  sank  within 
him.  Yet  one  great  thought  of  comfort  was  with 
him — the  fiddle  was  safe  under  its  rose-leaves  and 
its  lilac  mint-flowers.  Teresina  would  not  let 
it  go. 

He  understood  that  the  storj^  of  his  buying 
the  violin  had  run  through  the  Lastra,  gathering 


SIGNA.  281 


exaggerated  wonders  as  it  went.  Indeed,  if  only 
lie  had  thought  a  little,  he  would  have  known 
that  the  scene  at  the  tinman's  shop  by  the  arch- 
way never  could  pass  without  being  talked  about 
by  the  dozen  idle  folks  who  had  had  nothing  to 
do  but  to  watch  it. 

But  even  Bruno  had  not  thought  of  that. 
Italians  love  secrets  ;  but  they  bury  them  as  the 
ostrich  buries  her  head. 

Toiling  up  under  his  overshadowing  cabbages, 
and  in  the  dusk  of  the  evening,  they  did  not  see 
him.  The  loud  shrill  voices  thrilled  to  his  very 
bones. 

''Let  me  get  at  him!  "  thundered  old  Baldo, 
who  echoed  his  daughter  always.  "  Two  hun- 
dred francs  !  The  little  brute  !  And  he  owes  me 
that  for  lodgement !  Oh,  Nita  mine  !  now  see 
what  comes  of  taking  nameless  mongrels " 

''Two  hundred  francs!"  moaned  Lippo,  his 
voice  shaking  with  a  sort  of  religious  horror, 
"  When  he  might  have  brought  half  to  my  wife, 
who  has  been  an  angel  of  mercy  to  him,  and 
spent  the  other  half  in  masses  for  his  poor  dead 
mother's souljwhich  allthe  devils  areburningnow !" 


282  SIGNA. 


"  That  is  the  thought  of  a  good  man,  but  of 
an  ass  ! "  said  Baldo  bluntly.  "  They  should 
have  come  to  your  strong  box  and  mine,  son  ; 
and  as  many  francs  as  there  were  shall  he  have 
lashes ! " 

"  Let  me  get  at  him ! — let  me  get  at  him ! 
Oh,  the  little  snake  that  I  suckled  at  my  breast, 
robbing  my  own  precious  child  for  him !  Two 
hundred  francs  !  two  hundred  francs  !  A  year's 
rent !  A  flock  of  sheep  !  — wine  to  flood  the 
town  ! — waggons  of  flour ! — ten  years'  indulgence ! 
— half  this  world  and  all  the  next,  why  one  might 
buy  for  such  a  sum  as  that !  And  flung  away  upon 
a  fiddle-case  !  But  to  prison  the  child  shall  go, 
and  Tonino  must  disgorge.  Let  me  only  catch 
him  !     Let  him  onl}^  come  home  !  " 

Signa,  in  the  dark  upon  the  stones,  looking 
up,  saw  this  excited  crowd,  with  waving  hands, 
and  fists  thrust  into  each  other's  eyes,  and  faces 
glowing  in  the  light  of  the  gateway  lamp,  and 
voices  breaking  out  against  him  and  blaming 
Bruno. 

They  were  ready  to  fling  him  bodily  into  the 
Arno. 


SIGNA.  283 


He  was  sh}^  but  he  was  brave.  His  heart 
sickened  and  his  temples  throbbed  with  horror 
of  the  unknown  things  that  they  would  wreak 
upon  him.  But  he  lowered  the  load  off  his 
shoulders,  and  darted  up  the  paved  way  into 
their  midst. 

"It  is  all  untrue,"  he  panted  to  them.  "  It 
was  only  forty  francs,  and  Bruno  had  nothing  to 
do  with  it,  and  the  little  Gesu  of  Perugino  sent 
me  the  money  for  my  own,  and  selfish  it  might 
be,  I  know ;  but  that  I  have  asked  God ;  and 
beat  me  you  may  till  I  am  dead,  or  put  me  in 
prison,  as  you  say,  but  it  was  all  my  own,  and 
my  wooden  Kusignuolo  is  safe,  and  you  cannot 
touch  it,  and " 

A  stroke  of  Nita's  fist  sent  him  down  upon  the 
ground. 

He  was  light  and  agile.  He  was  on  his  feet 
in  a  second.  All  the  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  his 
childhood  blazed  up  like  fire  in  him.  He  was  a 
gentle  little  soul,  and  forgiving ;  but  for  once 
the  blood  burned  within  him  into  a  furious  pain. 

Stung  and  bruised  and  heated  and  blinded  by 
the   blows  that  the  woman  rained  on   him,  he 


284  SIGN  A. 


sprang  on  her,  struck  her  in  the  eyes  with  all 
his  force,  and  tearing  himself  out  of  the  score  of 
hands  that  clutched  at  him,  he  slipped  through 
his  tormentors  and  fled  down  the  slope. 

"I  will  tell  Bruno  !  I  will  tell  Bruno !  "  he 
sobbed  as  he  went;  and  while  the  women  sur- 
rounded the  screaming  Nita,  who  shrieked  that  the 
little  brute  had  blinded  her  for  life.  A  solemn 
silence  fell  upon  the  men,  who  looked  at  Lippo. 
If  Bruno  were  told,  life  would  not  pass  smoothl}^ 
at  the  Lastra. 

That  minute  of  their  hesitation  gave  the  child 
time  for  his  libert3\  When  Lippo  and  the  barber 
pursued  him,  he  was  out  of  sight,  running  fast 
under  the  shadow  of  the  outer  walls,  where  all 
was  silent  in  the  dusk. 

"  This  comes  of  doing  good  !  "  groaned  Lij)po 
to  the  barber. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


SiGNA  ran  on  under  the  walls  where  the  men 
make  ropes  on  the  grass,  but  where  it  was  all 
deserted  now. 

He  had  never  known  what  passion  was  before. 
He  had  borne  all  ill-usage  as  his  due.  He 
had  let  himself  be  kicked  and  cuffed  as  a  gentle 
little  spaniel  does,  only  looking  up  with  wistful 
eyes  of  sorrowful  wonder. 

But  now  the  fury  of  a  sudden  sense  of  un- 
bearable wrong  had  boiled  uj)  in  his  veins  and 
mastered  him,  and  was  hissing  still  in  his  ears 
and  beating  still  in  his  brain. 

A  sense  of  having  done  some  great  crime 
was  heavy  on  him.  He  knew  he  had  been 
very  wicked.  He  could  feel  himself  striking, 
striking,  striking,  and  the  woman's  eyeballs  under 


286  SIGNA. 


his  hands.  He  might  have  killed  her  for  any- 
thing he  knew.  To  his  vivid  little  fancy  and 
his  great  ignorance  it  seemed  quite  possible. 
And  yet  he  had  borne  everything  so  long,  and 
never  said  a  word,  and  lain  awake  so  many  nights 
from  pain  of  bruises. 

Could  anybody  be  very  angry  with  him  for 
having  lost  his  temper  just  this  once  ? 

Bruno  would  not — that  he  knew. 

He  heard  the  steps  of  Lippo  and  the  barber 
and  the  mutterings  of  their  voices  pursuing  him. 
He  ran  as  if  he  had  had  wings.  A  great  vague 
terror  of  hideous  punishment  lent  him  the  speed 
of  a  gazehound.  He  doubled  the  walls  at  head- 
long speed,  his  bare  feet  scarcely  touching  the 
ground,  and  darted  in  at  the  door  of  old  Tere- 
sina's  dwelling  in  the  western  gateway.  By 
heaven's  mercy  she  had  not  drawn  the  bolt. 

The  old  woman  was  in  her  short  kirtle,  with 
the  handkerchief  off  her  grey  knot  of  hair,  get- 
ting ready  for  going  to  bed,  with  one  little 
lamp  burning  under  a  paper  picture  of  the 
Nativity. 

Signa  ran  to  her,  tumbling  over  the  spinning- 


SIGNA.  287 


wheel  and  the  dozing  cat  and  the  huge  brown 
moon-hke  loaf  of  bread. 

"  Oh,  dear  Teresina !  let  me  hide  here  !  "  he 
cried  in  liis  terror,  cHnging  to  her  skh'ts.  "  Lippo 
is  after  me.  They  are  so  angry  about  the  violm, 
and  I  have  hurt  Nita  very  much  because  she 
knocked  me  down.  Hide  me — hide  me  quick, 
or  they  will  kill  me  or  give  me  to  the  guards  !  " 

Old  Teresina  needed  no  twice  teUing.  She 
opened  the  big  black  coffer  with  the  illuminated 
figures,  where  she  had  hidden  the  vioHn  inside, 
and  motioned  the  child  to  follow  it.  The  coffer 
would  have  sheltered  a  man. 

She  left  the  lid  a  little  ajar,  and  Signa  laid 
himself  down  at  the  bottom  with  the  old-world 
smell  of  incense  and  spiced  woods.  His  wooden 
Rusignuolo  was  safe ;  he  kissed  it,  and  clasped 
it  to  liim.  After  all,  what  did  anything  matter,  if 
only  they  would  leave  that  to  him  in  peace  ? 

"  Lie  still  till  they  have  been  here  to  ask  for 
you,"  said  Teresina  ;  and  she  tied  her  handker- 
chief over  her  head  again  and  began  to  spin. 

In  a  few  minutes  there  was  rapping  on  her 
door. 


2S8  SIGNA. 


Teresina  put  her  head  out  of  the  window,  and 
called  to  know  who  was  there. 

''It  is  I — Lippo,"  a  voice  called  up  to  her  in 
answer.  ''  Is  the  little  devil  with  you  ?  We  have 
loved  him  as  our  own,  and  now  he  has  half 
murdered  Nita — Nita  that  fed  him  from  her 
hosom  and  treated  him  inch  for  inch  like  Toto 
all  these  years !  Here  is  Papucci — he  will  tell 
you.     Is  the  boy  with  you  ?  " 

"  I  have  not  seen  him  all  da}^,"  said  Teresina, 
"I  thought  he  was  on  the  hills.  Come  up, 
good  Lippo,  and  look,  and  tell  me  more.  The 
child  has  a  sweet  pipe,  but  heaven  only  knows 
where  the  devil  may  not  lurk.  Come  up,  Lippo, 
and  tell  me  all.     You  make  me  tremble." 

"  You  work  late,  mother,"  said  Lippo,  sus- 
piciously, tumbhng  up  the  stairs  into  the  chamber. 

"  Aye.  Lisa  s  bridal  is  on  S.  Anne's  da}^ 
and  there  is  next  to  no  sheeting.  A  granddame 
must  do  what  she  can  for  the  dower.  But  tell 
me  all — all — quick,  dear  !  How  white  you  look, 
the  saints  keep  us  !  " 

"  White !  With  a  little  viper  nurtured  nine 
years  stinging  you,  and  a  dear,  good  wife  blind. 


SIGNA.  289 


I  daresay,  for  life,  wlio  would  not  be  white  ?  '* 
wept  Lippo,  glancing  sharply  through  the  shadows 
of  the  room.  "  And  of  course  you  must  have 
heard — two  hundred  francs  and  a  beastly  fiddle  ! 
and  it  is  enough  to  bring  the  judgment  of  Holy 

Chui'ch " 

"I  have  heard  nothing,"  said  Teresina,  with 
her  hands  uplifted  in  amaze.  "  Sit  down  and 
tell  me,  Lippo  and  Papucci  too  ;  you  look  ready 
to  drop,  both  of  you.  Two  hundred  francs  ! 
Gesu  !  why,  it  would  buy  up  the  whole  of  the 
town  !  And  a  fiddle — ah,  now  I  think  of  it,  the 
dear  naughty  little  lad  was  always  sighing  for  an 
old  thing  in  Tonino's  window  that  he  had  played 
on  once." 

"  If  I  could  find  him  or  it  I  would  break  it  in 
shivers  over  his  head,"  said  Lippo,  forgetting  his 
saintly  savour.  "  I  am  a  meek  man,  as  you  know, 
and  a  merciful,  and  never  say  a  harsh  word  to 
a  dog ;  but  my  dear  wife  bhnd,  and  all  that  money 
squandered,  and  Bruno,  if  that  little  beast  is  gone 
to  him,  ready  to  smash  every  bone  in  my  body ! 
It  is  horrible  !  " 

** Horrible,  truly,"  gasped  Teresina.     "It  is 

TOL.  I.  17 


290  SIGNA. 


like  a  green  apple  to  set  one's  teeth  on  edge. 
But  tell  me  the  tale  clear ;  how  is  one  to  under- 
stand ?  " 

They  told  her  the  tale,  both  in  the  same 
breath,  with  every  ornament  that  imagination  and 
indignation  could  lavish  on  it :  death  may  be 
imminent,  time  may  be  money,  a  moment  lost 
may  mean  ruin  or  murder  or  a  house  devoured 
by  flames ;  but,  all  the  same,  Lippo  and  all  his 
country-people  will  stop  to  tell  their  tale.  Let 
Death's  scythe  fall  or  Time's  sands  run  out,  they 
must  stand  still  and  tell  their  tale. 

The  story-tellers  of  the  Decamerone  are  true 
to  nationality  and  nature. 

And  while  they  told  it  Teresina  trimmed  fresh 
her  lucernata,  and  made  the  wick  burn  so 
brightly  that  there  was  not  a  nook  or  cranny  of 
the  little  place  in  which  a  mouse  could  have  been 
hidden  unseen. 

"  But  you  never  will  go  after  him  to  Bruno's,'* 
she  said,  when  the  narrative  was  done,  and  all 
her  horror  poured  out  at  it  in  strongest  sym- 
pathy. "  The  child  is  half-way  there  by  this 
time,  and  Bruno  takes  part  with  him  right  or 


SIGNA.  291 


wrong — 3^011  best  know  wh}^ — and  he  is  so  violent ; 
and  at  night,  too,  on  that  lonely  hill ;  there  might 
be  mischief." 

"  Aye,  there  might,"  said  Papucci,  ^\ith  a 
quaking  in  his  voice  :  she  knew  her  men. 

"  No  fear  of  that,"  said  Lippo,  with  a  boast ; 
"Bruno  is  fierce,  we  all  know  his  fault — dear 
fellow,  the  saints  change  his  heart !  But  with 
me — oh,  never  with  me." 

"  For  all  that  he  shook  you  once  many  years 
ago  when  you  beat  the  child  all  in  justice  and 
good-meaning — shook  you  as  a  big  dog  does  a 
little  one,"  said  Teresina,  with  a  nod  of  her 
head  and  a  twinkle  in  her  eyes.  ^'1  would  not 
go  nigh  him,  not  to-night ;  you  must  thmk  of 
your  good  Nita  and  all  those  children.  With  the 
morning  jou  will  be  cool,  both  of  you.  But 
Bruno  on  that  hill,  in  the  dark — I  should  not 
care  to  face  him,  not  on  ill  terms.  You  have 
your  family,  Lippo." 

"  But  if  we  leave  it  till  the  morning " 

"  Well,  what  harm  can  come  ?  The  child's  sin 
is  the  same,  and  Nita  can  have  law  on  him  ;  and, 
about  the  money,  Bruno,  of  course,  must  hear 

u  2 


292  i^IGNA. 


reason,  and  give  up  the  fiddle,  and  let  you  get 
the  whole  sum  back.  Tonino  would  see  the  jus- 
tice of  that  :  you  have  reared  and  roofed  the 
child  ;  all  his  is  yours — that  is  fair  right.  But 
if  you  cross  Bruno,  of  a  sudden,  in  the  night 


"  There  is  reason  in  what  you  say,  mother," 
assented  Lippo,  whose  heart  was  hammering 
against  his  ribs  in  mortal  terror  of  confronting 
Bruno. 

And  after  a  little  while  he  went,  glad  of  an 
excuse  to  veil  his  fears  from  the  loquacious 
barber. 

"  Tell  Nita  I  shall  see  her  in  the  morning,  and 
liow  sorry  I  am,  because  I  loved  the  lad's  little 
pipe,  and  never  thought  he  had  such  evil  in  him," 
said  Teresina,  opening  her  door  to  call  the  vale- 
diction after  them  down  the  stairway.  Then  she 
came  and  opened  the  lid  of  the  coffer. 

*'  He  is  gone  now — -jump  out,  little  one." 

"Oh,  why  did  you  keep  him  ?  "  cried  Signa, 
looking  up  as  if  he  were  in  his  coffin.  "I  thought 
he  never  would  go,  and  I  was  so  afraid.  And 
have  I  hurt  her  so  much  as  that,  do  you  think  ?" 


SIGNA.  293 


"As  if  your  little  fists  could  bruise  a  big  cow 
like  Nita — what  folly  !  I  kept  him  to  send  him 
away  more  surely.  When  you  want  to  get  rid  of 
a  man,  press  him  to  stay ;  and  if  you  have  any- 
thing you  need  to  hide,  light  two  candles  instead 
of  one.  No,  you  have  never  hurt  Nita.  Take  my 
word,  she  is  eating  an  onion  supper  this  minute. 
But  there  will  be  trouble  when  Bruno  knows, 
that  I  do  fear." 

Signa  sat  uj)  in  the  coffer,  holding  the  violin 
to  his  chest  with  two  hands. 

"  Am  I  a  trouble  to  Bruno  ?  "  he  said  thought- 
fully. 

"  Well,  I  should  think  so — I  am  not  sure. 
The  brothers  are  always  quarrelling  about  you. 
There  is  something  underneath.  You  have  never 
complained  to  Bruno  ?  " 

"  No.  Georgio  told  me  Bruno  might  kill  Lippo 
if  I  did,  and  then  they  would  hurt  Bruno — send 
him  to  the  galleys  all  his  life;  so  Georgio 
said." 

''Like  enough,"  muttered  Teresina.  ''But 
you  cannot  hide  this,  little  one.  All  the  Lastra 
will  talk  about  it." 


294  SIGN  A. 


"  And  there  will  be  harm  for  Bruno  ?  " 

**  He  will  be  violent,  I  daresay — he  always  is. 
Bruno  does  not  understand  soft  answers,  and 
Lippo  is  all  in  the  wrong ;  and  then,  of  course, 
Bruno  must  learn  at  last  how  they  have  treated 
you.     It  will  be  a  pasticcio.'' 

Teresina  sat  down  on  her  wooden  chair,  and 
twitched  the  kerchief  off  her  head,  again  per- 
plexed and  sorrowful ;  to  make  a  pasticcio — a  bad 
past}^ — is  the  acme  of  woe  and  trouble  to  her 
nation. 

"Can  I  do  anything  ?  "  said  Signa  wistfully, 
sitting  still  in  the  open  coffer. 

"No — not  that  I  see — unless  you  could  put 
yourself  out  of  the  world,"  said  the  old  woman, 
not  meaning  anything  in  particular,  but  only  the 
utter  hopelessness  of  the  matter  in  her  eyes. 

Signa  looked  up  in  silence  ;  he  did  not  miss  a 
word. 

"  No,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done,"  said  Tere- 
sina, in  anxious  meditation.  "  Bruno  will  get 
into  trouble  about  you — I  have  always  thought 
he  would.  But  that  is  not  your  fault,  poor  little 
soul !    There  is  something .     Lippo  is  a  fox. 


SIGNA.  295 


He  plays  his  cards  well,  but  what  his  game  has 
been  nobody  knows.  Perhaps  he  has  made  a 
mistake  now.  Bruno  must  know  they  have  ill- 
used  you.  That  comes  of  this  money.  Money 
is  god  and  devil.  Why  could  that  painter  go  and 
give  you  gold  ? — a  bit  of  a  thing  like  you.  Any 
other  man  than  Bruno  would  have  put  it  by  to 
buy  you  your  coat  for  3^our  first  communion. 
But  that  was  always  Bruno — one  hand  on  his 
knife  and  the  other  scattering  gifts.  For  my 
part,  I  think  Bruno  the  better  man  of  the  two, 
but  no  one  else  does.  Yes ;  there  must  be 
trouble.  Bruno  will  break  his  brother's  head, 
and  Lippo  will  have  law  on  hun.  You  might  go 
to  Tonino  and  get  him  to  take  the  fiddle  back  ; 
but  then  it  was  only  forty  francs,  and  Lippo  will 
alwaj'S  scream  for  the  two  hundred  that  the  fools 
have  chattered  about;  that  would  be  no  good. 
Oh,  Dio  mio  !  if  only  that  angel  at  the  Certosa 
had  not  sen-t  you  anything.  Angels  stand  aloof 
so  many  years,  and  then  they  put  their  finger  in 
the  dough  and  spoil  the  baking.  May  they  for- 
give me  up  above  !  I  am  an  ignorant  old  woman, 
but  if  they  would    only  answer   prayer  a  httle 


296  SIGNA. 


quicker  or  else  not  at  all.  I  speak  with  all 
respect.  My  child,  sleep  here  to-night,  and  be 
off  at  dawn  to  Bruno.  Sleep  on  it.  Get  up  while 
it  is  grey,  to  have  the  start  of  Lippo  and  his 
people.  But  sleep  here.  There  is  a  bit  of  grass 
matting  that  will  serve  you — there,  where  the  cat 
is  gone.  And  I  will  get  you  a  drop  to  drink  and  a 
bit  of  bread,  for  tired  you  must  be  and  shaken  ; 
and  what  the  Lastra  see  in  Lippo  to  make  a  saint 
of  baffles  me  ;  a  white-livered  coward  and  a  self- 
seeker.  He  will  die  rich ;  see  if  he  do  not  die 
rich  !  he  will  have  a  podere,  and  keep  his  baroc- 
cino,  I  will  warrant,  before  all  is  done  !  " 

She  brought  the  child  the  little  glass  of  red 
wine  and  a  big  crust ;  he  drank  the  wine — he 
could  not  eat — and  laid  down  as  she  told  him 
by  the  cat  upon  the  matting.  He  was  so  unhappy 
for  Bruno  ;  the  Eusignuolo  scarcely  comforted 
him,  only  every  now  and  then  he  would  stretch 
out  his  hand  and  touch  it,  and  make  sure  that  it 
was  there ;  and  so  fell  asleep,  as  children  will, 
be  they  ever  so  sorrowful. 

He  woke  while  it  was  still  dark,  from  long 
habit,  but  the  old  woman  was  already  astir.    She 


SIGN  A,  2{)7 


made  him  take  a  roll  and  a  slice  of  melon,  as  she 
opened  her  wooden  shutter  and  looked  out  on  to 
the  little  acacia  trees  below,  and  the  big  moun- 
tain, that  was  as  3'et  grey  and  dark. 

"  Get  you  up  the  hill,  dear,  to  Bruno,  and  out 
of  the  house  before  the  men  are  about  underneath 
with  the  straw,"  she  said  to  him,  *'  and  I  do  not 
know  what  you  can  say ;  and  I  misdoubt  there 
will  be  ill  words  and  bad  blows  ;  and  it  has  been 
said  for  many  a  year  that  Bruno  would  end  his 
days  at  the  galleys.  I  remember  his  striking  his 
sister  once  at  the  wine  fair  in  Prato — such  a 
scene  as  there  was — and  the  blood  spoiled  her 
bran  new  yellow  bodice,  that  was  fit  for  the 
Blessed  Mary — speaking  with  all  respect.  There 
is  Gian  undoing  his  big  doors  below — every  place 
is  full  of  grain  now.  Run,  run,  dear  little  fellow, 
and  the  saints  be  with  you,  and  do  not  forget 
that  they  love  a  peacemaker ;  though,  for  the 
matter  of  that,  we  folks  are  not  like  them — we 
love  a  feud  and  a  fight,  and  we  will  i)rick  our 
best  friend  with  a  pin  rather  than  have  dull  times 
and  no  quarrel.  Bun  off  quick,  and  take  the 
melon  with  vou." 


SIGN  A. 


He  did  as  she  told  him,  and  ran  away. 
She  watched  him  from  the]  little  square  win- 
dow over  the  carnation  pots.  She  was  a 
good  old  soul,  but  she  could  not  help  a  thrill 
of  longing  to  see  how  Bruno  would  come  down 
into  the  Lastra  lilie  a  brown  bull  gored  and 
furious. 

"  Only  the  one  that  is  in  the  right  always  gets 
the  worst  of  it,"  thought  Teresina  (who  had  seen 
her  seventy  years  of  life),  as  the  last  star  died 
out  of  the  skies,  and  she  turned  from  the  lattice 
to  scrub  out  her  pipkins  and  pans,  and  fill  her 
copper  pitcher  with  water,  and  sweep  the  ants 
away  with  her  reed  besom,  and  then  sat  down  to 
spin  on  at  Lisa's  bridal  sheeting,  glancing  now 
and  then  at  the  mountain,  and  wondering  what 
would  happen. 

What  would  happen  ? 

That  was  what  tortured  the  little  beating  heart 
of  Signa,  as  he  ran  out  into  the  lovely  cold  dark- 
ness of  the  dawn,  as  the  chimes  of  the  clocks 
told  four  in  the  morning.  He  held  his  slice  of 
melon  and  bread  in  one  hand,  and  clasped  the 
violin  and  its  bow  close  to  him  with  the  other.  A 


SIGNA.  299 


terrible  sense  of  guilt,  of  uselessness,  of  injury  to 
others,  weighed  on  him. 

Even  Teresina,  who  was  fond  of  him,  had  con- 
fessed that  he  was  a  burden  to  Bruno,  and  a 
cause  for  strife  at  all  times,  and  no  better. 
Even  Teresina,  who  was  so  good  to  him,  had 
said  that  he  could  do  nothing  unless  he  could 
get  himself  out  of  the  world. 

The  words  pursued  him  with  a  sense  that  the 
old  woman  would  have  bitten  her  tongue  through 
rather  than  have  convej^ed  into  the  child's  mind 
— a  sense  of  being  wanted  by  no  one,  useful  to 
no  one,  undesirable  and  wearisome,  and  altogether 
out  of  place  in  creation. 

He  was  old  enough  to  feel  it  sharply,  and  not 
old  enough  to  measure  it  rightly.  Besides  Nita 
and  Toto  and  Georgio,  and  all  of  them,  had  told 
him  the  same  thing  ten  thousand  times :  what 
was  said  so  often  b}^  so  many  must  be  true. 

To  kill  himself  never  entered  his  thoughts. 
The  absolute  despair  which  makes  life  loathsome 
cannot  touch  a  child.  But  he  did  think  of  run- 
ning away,  hiduig,  effacing  himself,  as  a  little 
hare  tries  to  do  when  the  hounds  are  after  it. 


300  SIGNA. 


He  would  go  awa}^,  lie  thought;  it  was  his 
duty ;  it  was  the  only  thing  he  could  do  to  serve 
Bruno,  and  he  was  ashamed  of  himself,  and  so 
sorrowful ;  and  perhaps  people  might  be  kind  to 
him  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountains  where 
the  sun  came  from;  perhaps  they  might  when 
they  heard  the  Eusignuolo.  Other  boys  decide 
to  run  away  for  love  of  adventure  or  weariness  of 
discipline,  but  he  resolved  to  run  away  because 
he  was  a  burden  and  brought  wild  words  between 
two  brothers,  and  was  good  for  nothing  else. 

The  curse  of  granted  prayers  lay  heavy  on  his 
young  frightened  soul.  The  thing  he  had  desired 
was  with  him;  the  thing  that  he  had  thought 
was  sweeter  than  food  or  friends  or  home,  or 
anything;  and  yet  his  feet  were  weary  and  his 
heart  was  sick  from  the  woe  which  it  had  brought 
upon  him. 

"  Still  it  is  mine — really  mine  !  "  he  thought, 
with  a  thrill  of  happiness  which  nothing  could 
wholl}^  stifle  in  him,  as  his  hand  wandered  over 
the  strings  as  he  went,  and  drew  out  from  them 
soft  sighing  murmurs  like  the  pipe  of  waking 
birds. 


SIGNA.  301 


Meanwhile  he  was  quite  resolute  to  run  away ; 
down  into  Florence,  he  thought,  and  then  over  to 
where  the  sunrise  was.  Of  the  west  he  was 
afraid ;  the  sea  was  there,  of  which  he  had  heard 
terrible  things  in  the  winter  evenings,  and  the 
west  alw^a3^s  devoured  the  sun,  and  he  supposed 
it  was  alwaj^s  night  there. 

"  I  will  just  bid  Gemma  good-bj^e — just  once," 
he  thought,  running  on,  stumbling,  and  not  see- 
ing his  way,  because  his  eyes  were  so  brimming 
with  tears ;  but  sight  did  not  matter  much.  He 
could  find  his  way  about  quite  safely  in  the 
darkest  night. 

The  gates  of  the  great  gardens  were  open,  for 
the  labourers  were  already  at  work  there,  and 
he  ran  into  the  shadowy,  fresh,  dew-wet  place, 
looking  for  her. 

If  he  could  find  her  without  going  to  the 
cottage,  he  thought,  it  w^ould  be  best,  because 
her  father  might  have  heard  and  might  detain 
him,  thinking  to  please  Bruno. 

He  was  not  long  before  he  saw  her.  Out  of 
hed  at  daybreak,  as  birds  are  out  of  their  nests, 
lying  on  her  back  in  the  wet  grass  by  the  marble 


302  SIGNA. 


pond,  where  the  red  Egyptian  rushes  were  in 
flower,  and  munching  the  last  atom  of  a  hard 
black  crust  which  had  been  given  her  for 
her  breakfast,  while  the  big  water  lilies  still 
were  shut  up,  and  the  toads  were^  hobbling 
home  to  their  dwellings  in  the  bottom  of  the 
tanks. 

Gemma  was  one  of  those  beautiful  children, 
who,  in  the  hand  of  Eaff'aelle,  are  not  a  fable.  As 
they  grow  older,  they  will  lose  their  beauty 
almost  always  ;  but  the  few  people  who  ever  had 
time  to  look  at  Gemma,  thought  that  she  would 
never  lose  hers. 

No  doubt  there  was  some  strains  of  the  old 
Goth  or  of  the  German  blood  in  her  from  the  far 
times  when  Totila  had  tramped  with  his  warriors 
over  the  ravaged  valleys,  or  Otho  had  come  down 
like  a  hawk  into  the  plains.  She  was  brilliantly 
fair ;  as  she  lay  now  on  the  grass  on  her  back, 
with  her  knees  drawn  up  and  her  rosy  toes  curled, 
and  her  arms  above  her  head,  she  shone  in  the 
sun  like  a  pearl,  and  her  face  might  have  come 
out  of  Botticelli's  choir,  with  its  little  scarlet  mouth 
and  its  wonderful  bloom  and  its  mass  of  lightest 


SIGNA.  303 


golden  hair  cut  short  to  the  throat,  but  falling 
over  the  eyes. 

"  Gemma,  I  have  brought  you  some  more 
breakfast,"  he  said  to  the  pretty  little  child. 

She  threw  hei  arms  round  his  neck,  and  set 
her  pearly  teeth  into  the  melon.  The  bread  fol- 
lowed. When  she  had  done  both  she  touched 
his  cheek  with  her  finger. 

"  Why  are  you  crying  ?  " 

"  Because  I  am  no  use  to  anyone.  Because  I 
bring  trouble  on  everybody." 

Gemma  surveyed  him  with  calm,  serious  eyes. 

"  You  bring  me  good  things  to  eat." 

That  was  his  use ;  in  her  eyes  there  could  be 
no  better. 

The  tears  fell  down  Signa's  face ;  he  sobbed 
under  his  breath,  and  kissed  Gemma's  light  curl- 
ing locks  with  a  sorrow  and  force  in  his  lips  that 
she  did  not  understand. 

**  I  think  I  will  go  away,  Gemma,"  he  said,  with 
a  sort  of  desperate  resolve. 

Gemma,  who  was  not  easily  excited,  surveyed 
him  with  her  blue  eyes  seriously  as  before. 

"Where?" 


304  SIGNA, 


"  I  do  not  know." 

"  That  is  silly." 

Gemma  was  a  year  younger  than  he.  But 
she  was  not  vague  as  he  was,  nor  did  she  ever 
dream. 

**  I  will  go  away,  I  and  the  Eusignuolo,"  said 
Signa,  with  a  sob  in  his  throat.  "  It  is  the  only 
way  to  be  no  burden — to  make  peace." 

Gemma  pushed  a  lizard  with  her  little  rosy  toes. 

"Mimi  does  not  bring  me  so  much  fruit  as 
you  do,"  she  said  thoughtfully.  Mimi  was  a 
neighbour's  son,  who  was  nine  years  old,  and 
worshipped  her,  and  brought  her  such  green 
plums  and  unripe  apples  as  his  father's  few 
rickety  trees  would  yield,  by  windfalls.  She  was 
wondering  how  it  would  be  with  her  if  she  were 
left  to  Mimi  only. 

"  Perhaps  I  will  get  you  beautiful  golden  fruit 
where  I  go,"  said  Signa,  who  always  uncon- 
sciously fell  into  figures  and  tropes.  '*  The 
signore  in  the  monastery  said  my  mouth  would 
drop  pearls.  I  have  seen  pearls — beautiful  white 
beads  that  the  ladies  wear.  They  are  on  the  gold- 
smiths' bridge  in  the  city.     When  my  lips  make 


SIGNA.  305 


them  3^ou  shall  have  them  round  j'om-  curls, 
Gemma,  and  on  your  throat,  and  on  j^our  arms ; 
how  prettj^  you  will  be  !  " 

He  was  smiling  through  his  tears,  and  kissing 
her.     Gemma  listened. 

"  With  a  gold  cross  like  Bice's  ? "  she  said, 
breathlessly.  Bice  was  a  rich  contadina  who 
had  such  a  necklace,  a  string  of  pearls  with  a 
gold  cross,  which  she  wore  on  very  high  feasts 
and  sacred  anniversaries. 

"  Just  like  Bice's,"  said  Signa,  thinking  of  his 
own  woe  and  answering  to  please  her. 

Gemma  reflected :  pushing  her  little  foot  against 
the  wet  gravel  in  lines  and  cii'cles. 

"Run  away,  at  once!"  said  she  suddenty, 
with  a  little  shout  that  sent  the  lizards  scam- 
pering. 

"  Oh,  Gemma  !  "  Signa  felt  a  sting,  as  if  a 
wasp  had  pierced  him.  Gemma  loved  him  no 
more  than  this. 

"  Run  away,  directly  !  "   said  the  little  child, 
with  a  stamp  of  her  foot,  like  a  baby  empress. 
"  To  get  you  the  pearls  ?  " 
Gemma  nodded. 

VOL.  r.  X 


306  SIGNA. 


Signa  sat  still  thinking ;  his  tears  fell ;  his 
eyes  watched  a  blue  and  grey  butterfly  in  the 
white  bells  of  the  aloe  flower.  He  could  not  be 
utterly  unhappy,  because  he  had  the  violin.  If  it 
had  not  been  for  that — 

"  Why  do  you  not  go  ?  "  said  the  little  child 
fretfully,  with  the  early  sunbeams  all  about  her 
little  yellow  head  in  a  nimbus  of  light. 

Signa  got  up;  he  was  very  pale;  his  great 
brown  eyes  swam  in  a  mist  of  tears. 

"Well  —  I  will  go  —  I  have  got  the  Rusig- 
nuolo.  Perhaps  it  is  not  true  what  the  signore 
said — but  I  will  go  and  see.  If  I  can  get  pearls 
— or  anything  that  is  good — then  I  will  come 
back,  and  the  Lastra  will  be  glad  of  me,  and  I 
will  give  everything  to  the  Lastra,  and  to  Bruno 
and  you.  Only,  to  go  away — it  will  kill  me,  I 
think.  But  if  I  do  die,  I  shall  be  no  burden 
anjanore  then  on  anyone.  And  if  the  signore 
spoke  truth,  and  I  am  worth  anything,  then  I 
will  be  great.  When  I  am  a  man  I  will  come 
back  and  live  here  always,  because  no  place  can 
be  ever  so  beautiful ;  and  I  will  make  new  gates, 
all  of  beaten  gold ;  and  I  will  build  the  walls  up 


SIGN  A,  307 


where  tliey  are  broken ;  and  I  will  give  corn  and 
wine  in  plenty  everywhere,  and  there  shall  be 
beautiful  singing  all  the  night  and  day,  and 
music  in  all  the  people's  homes,  and  we  will  go 
out  through  the  fields  every  morning  praising 
God ;  and  then  Signa  will  not  be  old  or  for- 
gotten any  more,  but  all  the  world  will  hear  of 
her—" 

And  he  went,  not  looking  back  once  at  the 
rushes  and  the  water-lily  and  the  little  cliild ;  see- 
ing only  his  own  visions,  and  believing  them  ; — 
as  children  and  poets  will. 

But  Gemma,  pausing  a  moment,  ran  after  him. 

"  Take  me,  too  !  " 

"  Take  you — away  ?  " 

"  Yes.     I  want  to  go  too." 

Signa  kissed  her  with  delight. 

"  You  are  so  fond  of  me — as  that  ?  " 

*'  Oh,  yes ;  and  I  am  so  tired  of  black  bread, 
and  Mimi's  plums  are  always  green." 

Signa  put  her  away  a  little  sadly. 

*'  You  must  not  come.     There  is  your  father." 

"  Yes.     I  will  come.     I  want  to  see  what  you 

will  see." 

X  2 


308  SIGN  A, 


"But,  if  you  should  be  unhappy  ?  "  > 

"  I  will  come  back  again." 

Signa  wavered.  He  longed  for  his  playmate. 
But  he  knew  that  she  wished  a  wrong  thing. 

"  I  cannot  take  you,"  he  said,  with  a  sigh. 
'*  It  would  be  wicked.  Palma  would  cry  all  the 
day  long.  Besides,  I  am  nothing — nobody  wants 
me.  I  go  to  spare  Bruno  pain  and  trouble  ; 
that  is  different.  But  you,  Gemma,  all  of  them 
love  you." 

"  Let  us  go,"  said^Gemma,  putting  her  hand 
in  his. 

"  But  I  dare  not  take  you  !  " 

*'  You  do  not  take  me,"  said  Gemma,  with  a 
roguish  smile,  and  the  sophism  of  a  woman 
grown.     "You  do  not  take  me.     I  go." 

"  But  why  ?     Because  you  love  me  ?  " 

Gemma  ruffled  her  golden  locks. 

**  Because  they  give  me  nothing  to  eat." 

"  They  give  you  as  much  as  they  have  them- 
selves." 

"  Ah  !  but  you  will  give  me  more  than  you 
have,"  said  Gemma,  with  the  external  foolishness 
and  internal  logic  of  female  speech. 


SIGNA.  309 


Signa  put  her  away  with  a  sigh. 

"  Perhaps  I  shall  have  nothing,  Gemma.  Da 
not  come." 

Gemma  stopped  to  think. 

"You  will  always  get  something  for  me,"  she 
said,  at  last.  "  Take  me — or  I  will  go  and  tell 
Bruno." 

Signa  hesitated,  and  succumhed  to  the  stronger 
will  and  the  resolute  selfishness  of  the  Httle 
child :  they  are  more  often  feminine  advantages 
than  the  world  allows. 

"  You  will  he  angry  with  me.  Gemma,  in  a 
day,  if  I  let  you  have  your  way,"  he  said,  hang- 
ing his  head  in  sad  perplexity. 

Gemma  laughed  :  she  was  so  pretty  when  she 
laughed  ;  Fra  Angelico  would  have  delighted  to 
paint  her  so. 

**  "When  I  am  angry,  I  am  not  dull,"  she  said, 
wdth  much  foresight  for  her  own  diversion. 
"  The  hoys  slap  me  back  again.  But  you  never 
do.  Let  us  go — or  I  will  run  up  and  teU 
Bruno." 

"  Come,  then,"  said  Signa,  with  a  sigh ;  he 
knew  that  she  would  do  what  she  said.     Gemma, 


310  SIGN  A. 


nine  years  old,  was  already  a  woman  in  many 
ways,  and  had  already  found  out  that  a  deter- 
mination to  please  herself  and  to  heed  no  one 
else's  pleasure  was  the  only  royal  road  to  com- 
fort in  earthly  life. 

And  she  was  resolved  to  go ;  already  she  had 
settled  with  herself  what  she  would  make  Signa 
do,  shaping  out  her  projects  clearly  in  the 
sturdy  little  brain  that  lived  under  her  amber 
curls. 

She  was  thought  a  beautiful  child,  but  stupid ; 
people  were  wrong. 

Gemma  lying  doing  nothing  under  a  laurel 
bush,  with  her  angelic  little  face,  and  her  stubborn 
refusal  to  learn  to  read,  or  learn  to  plait,  or 
learn  to  spin,  or  learn  to  do  anything,  was  as 
shrewd  as  a  little  fox  cub  for  her  own  enjoyments 
and  appetites.  She  lay  in  the  sun,  and  Palma 
did  the  work. 

"  We  will  go  to  Prato,"  said  Gemna,  all  smiles 
now  that  her  point  was  gained. 

"  I  thought — Florence,"  said  Signa,  who,  in 
his  own  thoughts,  had  resolved  to  go  there. 

"  Che  !  "  said  Gemna,  with  calm  scorn.    *'Boys 


SIGN  A.  311 


never  think.  You  would  meet  Bruno  on  the  road. 
It  is  Friday." 

Friday  is  the  market  day,  when  all  fattori  and 
contadini  having  any  green  stuff  to  sell,  or  grain 
to  chaffer  for,  or  accounts  to  settle  with,  meet  in 
the  scorch  of  the  sun,  or  in  the  teeth  of  the 
north  wind,  in  face  of  Orcagna's  Loggia ;  a 
weather-worn,  stalwart,  hreezy,  loquacious  crowd, 
with  eyes  that  smile  hke  sunny  waters,  and 
rough  cloaks  tossed  over  one  shoulder,  and  keen 
lips  at  close  bargains  either  with  foe  or  friend. 

'*  And  there  is  a  fair  at  Prato,"  said  Gemma, 
"  I  heard  them  saying  so  at  the  millhouse — 
when  I  took  Babbo's  grain." 

"  But  what  have  we  to  do  with  a  fair  ?  "  said 
Signa,  whose  heart  was  half  broken. 

Gemma  smiled  till  her  little  red  pomegranate 
bud  of  a  mouth  showed  all  her  teeth,  but  she  did 
not  answer  him.  She  knew  what  they  would 
have  to  do  with  it.  But  he— he  was  dreaming 
of  gates  of  inlaid  gold  for  the  Lastra. 

What  was  the  use  of  talking  any  sense  to 
him  ?     He  was  so  foolish  :  so  Gemma  thought. 

"  Prato  goes  out — to  the  world,"  she  said,  not 


312  SIGNA. 


knowing  very  well  what  she  meant,  hut  feeling 
that  an  indefiniteness  of  speech  was  hest  suited 
to  this  dreamer  with  whom  she  had  to  do. 
"  And  if  yau  want  to  get  away  you  must  go  there 
at  once — or  jon  will  have  Bruno  or  Lippo  coming 
on  you,  and  then  there  will  he  murder ;  so  you 
say.  Come.  Let  us  run  across  the  hridge  while 
we  can.     There  is  nohody  here.     Come — run." 

"  Come,  then,"  said  Signa,  under  his  breath, 
for  it  frightened  him.  But  Gemma  was  not 
frightened  at  all. 

It  was  now  five. 

The  great  western  mountain  had  caught  the 
radiance  of  the  morning  shining  on  it  from  the 
opposite  mountains,  and  was  many-coloured  as 
an  opal;  the  moon  was  blazing  like  a  globe  of 
phosphorus,  while  the  east  was  warm  still  with 
rosy  light;  all  above  them,  hills  and  fields  and 
woods  and  river  and  town,  were  bathed  in  that 
full  clear  light,  that  coldness  of  deep  dew,  that 
freshness  of  stirring  wind,  that  make  the 
earth  as  young  at  every  summer  sunrise  in  the 
south,  as  though  Eos  and  Dionysius  were  not 
dead  with  all  the  fancies  and  the  faiths  of  men, 


SIGNA.  313 


and  in  their  stead  Strauss  and  Hegel  reigning, 
twin  godhead  of  the  dreary  day. 

She  took  his  hand  and  ran  with  him. 

Signa's  tears  fell  fast  and  his  face  was  very  pale  ; 
he  kept  looking  hack  over  his  shoulder  at  each 
yard ;  hut  the  little  child  laughed  as  she  ran  at 
topmost  speed  on  her  little  hare  toes,  dragging 
him  after  her  down  the  piece  of  road  to  the 
bridge,  and  across  the  bridge,  and  so  on  to  the 
hillside. 

^'  I  know  Prato  is  the  other  way  of  the  moun- 
tains," said  Gemma,  who  had  more  practical 
shrewdness  in  her  little  rosy  finger  than  Signa 
in  all  his  mind  and  body.  "  I  have  seen  the 
people  go  to  the  markets  and  faks,  and  they 
always  go  up  here — up,  up, — and  then  over." 

Signa  hardly  heard.  He  ran  with  her  because 
she  had  tight  hold  of  his  hand ;  but  he  was  look- 
ing back  at  the  gates  of  the  Lastra. 

No  one  said  anything  to  them.  On  the  north 
side  of  the  bridge  no  one  had  heard  the  terrible 
story  ;  and  if  they  had  heard,  w^ould  not  have  had 
leisure  to  say  anything,  because  it  was  threshing 
time,   ancl    everybody  was    busy  in  one    way  or 


314  SIGNA. 


another  with  the  corn — piling  it  on  the  waggons, 
driving  the  oxen  out  to  the  fields  for  it,  tossing 
it  into  the  harns  or  the  courtyards,  banging  the 
flails  over  it,  or  stacking  the  straw  in  ricks, 
with  a  long  pole  riven  through  each  to  stay  the 
force  of  the  hurricanes. 

When  the  country  side  is  all  yellow  with  reaped 
grain,  or  all  purple  with  gathered  grapes,  Signa 
people  would  not  have  time  to  notice  an  em- 
peror ;  their  hearts  and  souls  are  in  their  thresh- 
ing barns  and  wine-presses.  When  they  are 
quiet  again,  and  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  plait 
or  to  loiter,  then  they  will  make  a  mammoth  out 
of  a  midge  in  the  way  of  talli,  as  well  as  any 
gossippers  going. 


CHA.PTER  XIV. 

There  were  many  mnles,  and  horses,  and 
carts,  and  men,  and  women,  and  asses  rattling 
out  over  the  cross  roads  from  the  many  various 
villages  and  farms  towards  Prato. 

In  the  ways  of  the  Lastra  itself  dust  was  rising 
as  the  noisy  ramshackle  baroccini  w^ere  pulled 
out  of  their  stables  and  got  ready  with  any  poor 
beast  that  w^as  at  home.  The  cattle  had  all  been 
driven  over  in  strings  the  night  before  from  every 
part  of  the  country,  lowing,  whinnying,  and 
bleating  as  they  went. 

The  road  over  the  hill  was  thick  with  dust, 
and  trampled  with  traffic  as  the  children  climbed 
it,  and  many  a  rope -harnessed  horse  and  crazy 


316  SIGNA. 


vehicle  flew  by  them  in  a  cloud  of  white  powder, 
the  driver  shrieking,  "  Via,  via,  via  !  " 

"  We  shall  be  seen  and  stopped,"  said  Signa, 
shrinking  back;  but  Gemma  pulled  him  on- 
ward. 

'*  Nonsense,"  she  said,  steadily.  "  They  do 
not  think  about  us  ;  they  think  about  themselves 
and  the  fair ;  and  where  they  will  drink  and  eat, 
and  how  they  will  cheat." 

Gemma  dwelt  under  the  lemon  leaves  of  lonely 
Giavola ;  but  her  experiences  of  life  had  been 
sufficient  to  tell  her,  that  when  your  neighbour 
is  eating  well  and  cheating  comfortably  he  will 
usually  let  you  alone. 

She  would  not  let  him  go  back  ;  she  kept  close 
hold  of  his  hand,  and  trotted  on  her  rosy,  strong 
little  feet  that  tired  no  more  than  do  a  mountain 
pony's. 

She  was  right  in  her  conclusions.  The  carts 
rattled  by  and  no  one  took  any  notice  of  them 
Two  children  running  by  the  wayside  were 
nothing  uncommon,  that  anyone  should  remark 
on  it  and  reflect  about  it ;  and  one  or  two  people 
who  did  look  at  them  and  recognise  them  sup- 


SIGNA.  317 


posed  that  they  were  going  somewhere  on  some 
errand  for  Sandro  or  for  Bruno. 

They  went  along  unmolested  till  the  sun  rose 
higher  and  the  glittering  heavy  dews  began  to 
pass  off  from  the  earth  as  the  day  widened. 

They  descended  the  hill  and  proceeded  along 
the  straight  road  of  the  plain  ;  the  great  line  of 
the  northern  mountains  unrolled  before  them  in 
the  morning  hght,  with  airy  grey  summits  high 
in  the  clouds,  and  the  lower  spurs  purple  with 
shadow,  and  here  and  there  the  white  gleam  of  a 
village  dropped  in  a  ravine,  or  of  a  little  town 
shining  at  the  foot  of  a  bold  scarp.  Monte 
Morello  rose  the  highest  of  all  the  heights,  look- 
ing a  blue,  solemn,  naked  peak  against  the  radiant 
sky,  keeping  the  secrets  of  his  green  oak  forests 
and  his  emerald  snakes  for  such  as  have  the  will 
and  strength  to  see  him  near.  Beyond,  in  the 
distance,  far  behind  the  nearer  range,  were  the 
fantastic  slopes  of  the  mountains  by  the  sea,  that 
saw  the  flames  of  Shelley's  pyre  rise  on  the  soli- 
tary shore.  They  were  of  faint  rose  hue,  and 
had  a  silvery  light  about  them.  Signa  looked  at 
them ;  they  seemed  to  him  like  domes  and  towers. 


318  SIGNA. 


''Are  those  temples,  do  you  tliink?  "  he  said, 
in  an  awed  voice,  to  Gemma. 

Gemma  looked,  and  put  her  finger  in  her 
mouth. 

"  Perhaps  they  are  the  tops  of  the  big  booths 
at  the  fair." 

"  Oh,  Gemma  !  "  he  said,  with  pained  disgust, 
and  would  have  loosened  his  hand,  but  she  held 
it  too  close  and  tight. 

''  If  they  are  booths,  we  shall  get  to  them  in 
time,"  she  said. 

"I  would  rather  they  were  temples,  though 
we  might  never  get  to  them,"  said  he,  with  heat 
and  pain. 

"  That  is  silty,"  said  Gemma. 

What  use  were  those  temples  that  one  never 
got  to ; — or  of  any  temples,  indeed  ?  Nobody 
ever  fried  in  them,  or  made  sweetmeats. 

That  is  what  she  thought  to  herself,  but  she 
did  not  say  so  aloud.  He  was  so  silly  ;  he  never 
saw  these  things  ;  and  she  wished  to  keep  him 
in  good  humour. 

In  time  they  reached  Poggio  Caiano :  they 
were  used  to  run  along  dusty  roads  in  the  sun 


SIGNA.  319 


and  did  not  tire  quickly.  They  could  both  of 
them  run  a  dozen  miles  or  more  with  very  little 
fatigue,  but  it  was  now  seven  in  the  morning. 

*'  I  am  thirsty,"  said  Gemma.  ^'I  should  lil^e 
some  milk.     Ask  for  it." 

There  was  a  cottage  by  the  side  of  the  road 
with  wooden  sheds  and  cackling  hens,  and  bits 
of  grass  land  under  shady  mulberries.  She  saw 
two  cows  there.     Signa  hung  back. 

"  We  have  nothing  to  buy  it  with — nothing ! " 

"  How  helpless  you  are,"  said  Gemma,  and 
she  put  her  pretty  golden  head  in  at  the  cottage 
door.  There  was  a  brown,  kindly -looking  woman 
there,  plucking  dead  pigeons. 

"  Dear  mother,"  said  Gemma,  coaxingly,  "  you 
look  so  good,  could  you  give  us  just  a  little  drop 
of  water  ?  We  have  been  walking  half  the  night. 
Father  is  gone  to  Prato  with  a  string  of  donkeys 
to  sell,  and  we  are  to  meet  him  there,  and  we  are 
so — oh,  so  thirsty  !  " 

"  Poor  little  souls  !  "  said  the  woman,  melted 
in  a  moment,  for  all  Italians  are  kind  in  Httle 
things.  "  My  child,  what  a  face  jou  have 
— like   the  baby,  Jesus  !      Step   in  here  and  I 


320  'SIGN A. 


will   get  you  a  draught  of  milk.     Is  that  your 
brother?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Gemma. 

"  Oh,  Gemma!  to  lie  is  so  wicked! "  murmured 
Signa,  plucking  at  her  ragged  skirt. 

"Is  it  ? "  said  Gemma,  showing  her  pearly 
teeth;  'Hhen  everybody  is  wicked,  dear;  and  the 
good  God  must  have  his  hands  full !  " 

The  woman  brought  them  out  two  little  wooden 
bowls  of  milk. 

Gemma  drank  from  hers  as  thirstily  and 
prettily  as  a  little  snake  could  do.  Signa  refused 
his.     He  said  he  did  not  wish  for  it. 

"  Perhaps  you  are  hungry,"  said  the  woman, 
and  offered  them  two  hunches  of  wholesome 
bread. 

Signa  shook  his  head  and  put  his  hands  behind 
his  back. 

Gemma  took  both. 

"You  are  so  kind,"  she  said,  winningly,  "and 
we  are  hungry.     My  brother  is  shy,  that  is  all." 

"Poor  little  dear!"  said  the  good  housewife, 
won  and  touched,  so  that  she  brought  out  some 
figs  as  well.     "  And  you  have  been  walking  far  ? 


SIGNA.  321 


and  have  so  far  still  to  go  ?  Your  father  is 
cruel." 

"  He  is  very  poor,"  said  Gemma,  sadl}^,  "  and 
glad  to  get  a  copper  diiving  the  asses.  We  come 
from  Scandicci,  a  long  way." 

And  then  she  threw  her  arms  around  the 
woman  prettily,  and  kissed  her,  and  trotted  on, 
hugging  the  bread  and  figs. 

The  woman  watched  them  out  of  sight. 

"  A  sweet  child,"  she  thought.  "If  the  good 
Madonna  [had  only  given  me  the  like  ! — ah  me  ! 
I  would  have  thanked  her  day  and  night.  The 
boy  is  handsome  too — but  sulky.  Poor  babies, 
it  is  very  far  to  go." 

And  she  called  Gemma  back  and  kissed  her 
again,  and  gave  her  a  little  bit  of  money,  being  a 
soft-hearted  soul  and  well  to  do  herself. 

**  Is  it  wicked  to  lie  ?  "  said  Gemma  to  Signa, 
showing  her  white  httle  teeth  again.  "  But,  look  ! 
— it  does  answer,  you  see  !  " 

"  I  cannot  talk  to  you.  Gemma,"  said  the  boy, 
wearily;   "you  are  so  wrong,  you  grieve  me  so." 

Gemma  laughed. 

"  And  yet  it  is  me  you  always  want  to  kiss — 

VOL.    T.  Y 


322  SIGNA. 


not   Palma.      Palma,  who  never  tells   a  lie   at 
all !  " 

Signa  coloured.  He  knew  that  that  was  true. 
He  went  on  silently,  holding  the  violin  close 
to  him,  and  not  giving  his  hand  to  Gemma  any 
more.  She  did  not  try  to  take  it ;  it  was  too  far 
for  him  to  turn  back. 

They  came  to  the  royal  gardens  of  the  palace 
where  onceBianca  Capella  reigned  and  was  happy, 
and  studied  her  love  philtres  and  potions  for 
death's  sleep.  Some  great  gates  stood  ajar ; 
there  were  the  green  shade  of  trees  and  shadows 
of  thick  grass. 

"  Let  us  go  in,"  said  Gemma ;  and  they  went 
in,  and  she  sat  down  on  the  turf  and  began  to 
taste  the  sweetness  of  her  figs. 

Signa  stood  by  her,  silent  and  sad.  She  was  so 
wrong,  and  yet  she  was  so  pretty,  and  she  could 
make  him  do  the  things  he  hated,  and  he  was 
full  of  pain,  because  he  had  left  the  Lastra  and 
the  hills,  and  went  he  knew  not  whither. 

"  What  are  you  doing  there,  you  little  tramps  ! 
Be  off  with  you,"  cried  one  of  the  gardeners  of 
the  place,  espying  them. 


SIGNA.  323 


Gemma  lifted  to  liim  her  blue  caressing 
eyes. 

"  Are  we  doing  wrong  ?  Oli,  dear  signore, 
let  us  stop  a  little,  just  a  very  little ;  we  wiU  not 
stir  from  here ;  only  we  are  so  tired,  so  very  tired, 
and  in  the  road  it  is  hot  and  dusty  and  the  carts 
are  so  many! " 

The  gardener  looked  at  her  and  grumbled,  and 
relented. 

"  If  you  do  not  stir  you  may  stop  a  little  while 
— a  very  little,"  he  said  at  last.  "  Where  have 
you  come  from,  you  baby  angel  ?  " 

*'  From  Scandicci ;  and  we  go  to  Prato." 

The  man  lifted  his  hands  in  horror,  because 
Scandicci  was  a  long  long  way,  away  upon  the 
Greve  river. 

"  From  Scandicci !  Poor  children  !  Well, 
rest  a  little  if  you  like." 

And  he  left  the  gate  open  for  them. 

"  Have  you  beautiful  flowers  here  ? "  said 
Gemma,  softly  glancing  through  the  trees.  "  I 
do  love  flowers  !  " 

She  did  not  care  for  a  flower  more  than  for  a 
turnip,  liviQg  amongst  gardens  always,  as  she  had 

Y  2 


324  SIGNA. 


done.     But  she  knew  flowers  went  to  market, 
like  the  butter  and  the  eggs. 

"  Do  you  ?  You  are  a  flower  yourself,"  said 
the  gardener,  who  had  had  three  pretty  children 
and  lost  them.  "  What  are  you  going  to  do,  you 
and  your  brother  ?  " 

"  We  are  going  to  play  in  Prato.  We  have  no 
father  or  mother.  He  makes  the  music  and  I 
dance,"  said  Gemma,  who,  though  without  imagin- 
ation of  the  finer  sort,  could  ring  the  changes 
prettily  in  Ijmg. 

"Poor  little  things ;  and  what  are  your  names  ?  " 
"  I  am  Kita;  and  he  is  Paolo,"  said  Gemma. 
"  Do  you  think  you  could  give  me  a  flower — just 
one — to  smell  at  as  I  go  along  ?  " 
"I  will  see,"  said  the  man,  smiling. 
Signa   stood  by  mute,  with  a  swelling  heart. 
He  knew  that  he  ought  to  stop  her  in  her  false- 
hoods, but  he  was  afraid  to  vex  her  and  afraid  to 
lose  her.     He  listened,  wounded  and   ashamed^ 
and  feeling  himself  a  coward. 

"Why  do  you  do  such  things.  Gemma?"  he 
cried,  piteously,  as  the  gardener  turned  away. 
"It  is  no  use  telling  you,  you  are  so  silly," 


SIGN  A.  325 


said  Gemma ;  and  she  ate  fig  after  fig,  Ijdng  on 
her  back  in  the  shade  of  the  trees  where  once 
Bianca  and  Francesco  had  wandered  when  their 
love  and  the  summer  were  at  height ;  and  where 
their  spmts  wander  still  at  midnight,  so  the 
I)easants  say. 

In  a  little  time  the  gardener  returned,  bringing 
with  him  a  basket  of  cut  flowers. 

"You  may  like  to  sell  these  in  Prato,"  he  said 
to  the  child.  "  And  you  will  find  a  peach  or  two 
at  the  bottom." 

"  Oh,  how  good  you  are !  "  cried  Gemma, 
springing  up ;  and  she  kissed  the  flowers  and 
then  the  brown  hand  of  the  man. 

"  You  have  but  a  sulk}-  companion,  I  fear," 
said  the  gardener,  glancing  at  the  boy,  who  stood 
aloof. 

"  Oh,  no  !  He  is  only  shy  and  tired.  What 
is  tliis  great  house  ?  " 

"It  is  a  palace." 

*'  Are  there  people  in  it  ?" 

"No.     Only  ghosts!" 

''Ghosts  of  what?" 

*'  Of  a  great  wicked  woman  who  lived  here ;  and 


326  SIGNA. 


her  lovers.  She  was  a  haker's  daughter,  hut  she 
murdered  many  people,  and  got  to  he  a  duchess 
of  Tuscany." 

"  Did  she  murder  them  to  he  a  duchess  ?  " 

"  They  say  so  ;  and  to  keep  her  secrets  !  " 

Gemma  opened  wondering  eyes. 

"  And  she  walks  here  at  night  ?  " 

"  By  night ;  not  that  I  can  say  I  have  ever 
seen  her  myself." 

"  I  should  like  to  meet  her." 

"Why?" 

"Perhaps  she  would  tell  me  how  she  did 
it." 

The  gardener  stared, — then  laughed. 

"You  pretty  cheruh ! — if  you  have  patience, 
and  grow  a  woman,  you  will  find  out  aU  that 
yourself." 

"  Come  away,"  said  Signa,  and  he  dragged  her 
out  through  the  open  gates. 

She  turned  to  kiss  her  hand  to  the  gardener. 
Signa  dragged  her  on  in  haste. 

"A  rude  boy  that,"  said  the  man,  as  he  shut 
the  gates  on  them. 

"  They  are   flowers  worth  five  francs  ! "  said 


SIGNA.  327 


Gemma,  hugging  her  basket  of  roses  ;  "  and  you 
think  it  is  no  use  to  tell  lies  ?  " 

"  I  think  it  is  very  vile  and  base." 

"Pooh!  "  said  Gemma,  and  she  danced  along 
in  the  dust.  She  had  got  a  basket  worth  five 
francs,  bread  and  fruit  enough  for  the  day,  and 
some  copper  pieces  as  well ;  all  by  looking 
pretty  and  just  telling  a  nice  little  lie  or  two. 

He  seemed  very  helpless  to  her.  He  had  got 
nothing. 

"It  is  very  hot  walking,"  she  said,  pre- 
sently. 

"  Yes,"  said  Signa.  "  But  we  are  used  to  it 
you  and  I." 

"  I  hate  it,  though." 

"But  we  must  do  it  if  we  want  to  get  to 
Prato." 

"Must  we?" 

She  thought  a  few  mmutes,  then  looked  behind 
her ;  in  the  distance  there  were  coming  along  a 
baroccino  and  an  old  white  horse. 

Gemma  gave  a  sudden  cry  of  pain. 

"What  is  it.  Gemma,  dear?"  cried  Signa, 
melted  in  a  moment  and  catching  her. 


328  SIGN  A. 


"  I  Lave  twisted  my  foot  on  a  stone.  Oh, 
Signa,  how  it  hurts  !  " 

She  sat  down  on  a  log  of  wood  that  chanced  to 
lie  there,  and  ruhbed  her  little  dusty  foot  dole- 
fully. Signa  knelt  down  in  the  dust,  and  took 
the  Httle  wounded  foot  upon  his  knee  and 
caressed  it  with  fond  words.  He  could  see  no 
hurt ;  but  then  no  one  sees  sprains  or  strains  till 
they  begin  to  swell. 

"  Oh,  Signa,  we  never  shall  get  on  !  It  hurts 
me  so  !  "  she  cried,  and  sobbed  and  moaned 
aloud. 

The  cart  stopped  ;  there  were  old  people  in  it 
coming  from  the  city  itself,  people  who  did  not 
know  them. 

^'  Is  there  anything  the  matter  ?  "  cried  the  old 
folks,  seeing  the  httle  giii  crying  so  bitterly. 

"  She  has  hurt  herself,"  said  Signa.  "  She 
has  twisted  her  ancle  or  something,  and  we  go  to 
Prato.  Oh,  Gemma,  dear  Gemma,  is  it  so  very 
bad?" 

Gemma  answered  by  her  sobbing. 

The  old  man  and  woman  chattered  together  a 
Httle,  then  seeing  the  children  were  so  pretty  and 


SIGN  A.  329 


seemed  so  sad,  told  them  there  was  room  in  the 
cart ;  they  themselves  were  going  to  Prato — there 
were  eight  miles  more  to  do  ;  the  boy  might  lift 
the  girl  in  if  he  liked. 

Gemma  soon  was  borne  up  and  seated  between 
the  two  old  people  ;  Signa  was  told  that  he  might 
curl  himself,  if  he  would,  on  the  rope  foot-place 
of  the  baroccino,  and  did  so.  The  white  horse 
rattled  onward. 

"You  are  a  pretty  boy,  too,"  said  the  woman 
to  Signa.     "  Why  do  you  not  talk  to  one  ?  " 

"  I  have  nothing  to  saj^,"  he  murmured. 

He  would  not  lie ;  and  he  could  not  tell  the 
truth  without  exposing  Gemma's  pretty  fables. 

"  You  are  more  sulky  than  your  sister ;  one 
would  think  it  was  yoiu-  foot  that  had  been  hurt," 
said  the  old  woman. 

It  was  the  third  time  in  half  an  hour  that, 
through  Gemma,  he  had  been  called  sulky.  He 
hung  his  head,  and  was  mute,  taking  care  that 
Gemma's  ankle  should  not  be  shakened  as  they 
went. 

The  way  seemed  to  him  very  long. 

He    could  see  little   on  account  of  the  dust, 


330  SIGNA. 


which  rose  in  large  quantities  along  the  road,  for 
the  weather  was  dry  and  the  traffic  to  the  fair 
was  great.  Now  and  then  he  saw  the  purple 
front  of  Monte  Morello  and  the  towers  of  Prato, 
lying  underneath  it  to  the  westward,  and  farther 
the  dark  quarried  sides  of  the  serpentine  hills, 
with  the  crimson  gleam  of  jasper  in  the  sun ; 
and,  much  farther  still,  Pistoia ;  that  was  all. 

Signa  took  her  foot  between  his  hands,  and 
held  it  tenderly,  so  that  the  jolting  should  not 
jar  it  more  than  he  could  help. 

Her  sobs  ceased  little  by  little,  and  she  chat- 
tered softly  with  the  old  driver,  telling  him  that 
she  was  going  to  Prato  to  sell  flowers,  and  her 
brother  to  make  a  few  coins  by  playing  if  he 
could ;  they  had  no  father  or  mother.  She  cried 
out  a  little  now  and  then,  when  the  cart  went 
rougher  than  usual  over  a  loose  stone. 

"  Are  you  in  such  pain,  dear  ?  Oh,  if  only  I 
could  bear  it  for  you  ! "  said  Signa;  and  the  tears 
came  in  his  eyes  to  think  that  she  should  suffer 
so  much. 

"It  is  better ;  do  not  fret,"  said  Gemma, 
gravely  ;  and  the  old  woman  in  the  cart  thought 


SIGNA.  331 


what  a  sweet-tempered  child  it  was,  so  anxious  to 
be  patient  and  not  vex  her  brother.  For  Gemma 
had  the  talent  to  get  credit  for  all  the  virtues 
that  she  had  not — a  talent  which  is  of  much 
more  use  than  any  real  possession  of  the  virtues 
ever  can  be. 

The  eight  miles  were  very  tedious  and  mom^nful 
even  to  Signa ;  he  was  full  of  sorrow  for  her 
little  bruised  foot,  and  full  of  care  for  her  future 
and  his  own,  and  full  of  reproach  to  himself  for 
having  let  her  come  with  him. 

"  Whatever  will  come  of  it — all  is  my  fault," 
he  thought,  tormenting  himself  whilst  the  white 
horse  trotted  wearily  over  the  bad  road,  and  the 
clouds  of  dust  blew  round  them  and  obscured 
the  green  sunny  valley  and  the  shining  Bisenzio 
river. 

Gemma,  moaning  a  little  now  and  then,  leant 
her  curly  head  against  the  old  woman's  knee,  and 
before  very  long  fell  fast  asleep,  her  long  black 
lashes  sweeping  her  rosy  cheeks. 

"  The  innocent  lamb  !  "  said  the  woman,  ten- 
derly, and  covered  her  face  from  the  sun  and 
from  the  flies. 


332  SIGNA. 


When  the  cart  stopped  at  the  south  gate  of 
Prato,  the  old  woman  woke  Gemma  softly : 

**  My  pretty  dear,  we  cannot  get  the  things  out 
without  moving  you,  but  if  you  will  sit  a  bit  in 
the  shade  by  the  wall  there,  we  will  take  you  up 
again  in  a  minute,  and  put  you  where  you  like  ; 
or  maybe  you  will  stay  with  us  and  have  a  taste 
of  breakfast." 

Her  husband  lifted  Gemma  with  much  care 
down  upon  the  stones,  and  set  her  on  a  bench, 
Signa  standing  still  beside  her. 

"  What  is  to  be  done.  Gemma  ?  "  he  said,  with 
a  piteous  sigh.  ''  Tell  these  good  people  the 
truth,  dear,  and  they  will  take  care  of  3'ou,  and 
drive  3'ou  back  again  to  Giovoli,  I  am  sure.  As 
for  me,  it  does  not  matter." 

*'You  are  agrullo."'  said  Gemma,  with  calm 
contempt,  which  meant  in  her  tongue  that  he  was 
as  foolish  a  thing  as  lived.  *'  Wait  till  they  are 
not  looking,  then  do  what  I  do." 

Soon  the  man  and  woman  had  their  backs 
turned,  and  were  intent  on  their  cackling  poultry 
and  strings  of  sausages. 

"  Now  ! "  said  Gemma,  and  she  darted  round  a 


SIGNA.  333 


corner  of  the  gate,  and  ran  swiftly  as  a  young 
hare  down  the  narrow  street,  clasping  her  flower- 
basket  close  to  her  all  the  while. 

"  But  you  are  not  lame  at  all !  "  cried  Signa, 
stupefied,  when  at  length,  panting  and  laughing, 
she  paused  in  her  flight. 

Her  azure  eyes  glanced  over  him  with  a  smile 
of  intense  amusement. 

"  Lame !  of  course  not !  But  we  wanted  a 
lift.     I  got  it.     That  was  all." 

''  Oh,  Gemma  !  " 

He  felt  stunned  and  sick.  He  could  only  look 
at  her.  He  could  not  speak.  He  thought  the 
very  stones  of  the  street  would  open  and  swallow 
her  for  such  wickedness  as  this. 

Gemma  laughed  the  more  to  see  his  face.  She 
could  not  perceive  anj^thing  amiss  in  what  she 
had  done.  It  had  been  fun  to  see  the  people's 
anxiety  for  her  ;  and  then  they  had  been  carried 
the  eight  miles  they  wanted : — how  could  any- 
thing be  wrong  that  had  so  well  succeeded  ? 

Gemma,  with  her  little  plump  bare  shoulders 
and  her  ragged  petticoat,  reasoned  as  the  big 
world  does  : — Success  never  sins. 


334  SIGNA. 


Signa  could  not  laugh.  He  would  not  answer 
her.    He  felt  wretched. 

"  You  are  a  kill-joy !  "  said  Gemma,  pettishly, 
and  sat  down  on  a  door-step  to  tie  up  her  flowers 
and  consider  what  it  would  be  best  worth  her 
while  to  do. 

She  decided  that  it  was  of  no  use  at  all  to 
consult  him.  He  was  full  of  silly  scruples  that 
grew  naturally  in  him,  as  choke-grass  in  the 
earth. 

"It  is  very  nice  to  be  away  from  everybody," 
said  Gemma,  sorting  her  flowers,  and  looking 
about  her  with  keen  pleasure  in  the  sense  of 
liberty  and  strangeness. 

*'  Oh,  Gemma !  It  breaks  one's  heart,"  mur- 
mured Signa,  while  the  water  swam  in  his  eyes. 
He  thought  his  heart  was  broken.  He  felt 
powerless  and  unutterably  wretched.  A  com- 
panion who  would  have  clung  to  him  and  needed 
his  protection  and  his  aid  would  have  aroused 
his  courage  ;  but  Gemma's  hardihood  and  daunt- 
lessness  and  reckless  wrong-doing  only  seemed 
to  crush  him  and  bewilder  him  till  he  felt  like 
any  frightened  kid  lost  upon  the  mountains. 


SIGNA.  335 


When  she  rose,  he  rose  also,  and  crept  after 
her  spiritless  and  wear3\ 

The  bold  craft  of  her  practical  mind  and  her 
little  merciless  words  of  worldly  wisdom  beat 
into  impotency  all  the  finer  impulses  and  higher 
intelligence  of  his  own.-  Moral  impudence 
scourges  spiritual  beauty  till  it  is  cowed  like  a 
whipt  dog. 

Gemma,  for  her  part,  was  indifferent ;  she  felt 
herself  the  master-mind  of  the  two ;  she  was 
perfectly  happy  seeing  strange  things,  and  not 
knowing  what  new  turn  fortune  might  not  take 
any  minute ;  she  thought  of  Palma  hoeing  and 
toiling  amongst  the  cabbages  at  home  with  scorn- 
ful pity,  and  said  to  herself,  "  how  nice  it  is  to  be 
away  and  not  have  a  soul  to  scold  one  !  "  When 
they  came  in  sight  of  the  cathedral  and  the  belfry, 
Signa,  moved  to  sudden,  interest,  pulled  her 
skirt. 

*'  Let  us  go  and  see  the  sacra  cintola,^'  whis- 
pered the  boy,  for  he  was  a  devout  little  fellow, 
and  had  heard  all  his  days  from  all  the  country- 
side of  the  wonders  of  the  holy  girdle  that  Prato 
enshrines. 


336  SIGNA. 


^'  What  will  the  sacra  cintola  do  for  us  ?  "  said 
Gemma. 

"Nothing,"  said  Signa,  sadly,  "nothing — now 
we  have  told  so  many  lies." 

"  The  girdle  would  not  have  had  that  cart," 
said  Gemma,  with  a  smile  that  would  have  been 
a  grin  only  she  was  so  pretty ;  and  she  let  Signa 
draw  her  onward  to  the  square  where  the  Duomo 
stands,  because,  as  she  thought  to  herself,  there 
would  surely  be  the  most  people  there,  it  being 
the  hour  of  high  mass — people  always  made 
themselves  safe  with  heaven  before  they  began  to 
jump  about  and  eat  and  drink. 

"  Look !  "  said  Signa,  forgetful  one  moment  of 
his  woes  in  his  delight  at  looking  up  at  the  great 
duomo  of  which  so  many  legends  were  rife  in  the 
country-side.  "Look!  Gemma,  look  !  There  is 
Donatello's  pulpit,  where  they  used  to  show  the 
girdle  to  the  people  on  the  feast  days ;  Donatello 
you  know,  who  once  was  only  just  a  little  poor 
boy  like  me,  and  Hved  to  make  the  marble  speak ; 
the  signore  at  the  Certosa  told  me  so ;  do  you 
think  they  ever  will  talk  of  me  hundreds  of  years 
after  I  am   dead  and   gone,   as  they,  do    about 


SIGN  A.  337 


him  ?  Oh,  I  think  they  will,  because  the  music 
does  last  like  the  stone,  though  no  one  can  touch 
it  and  feel  it  like  the  stone — and  I  am  sure  one 
day  I  will  make  some  music  that  they  will  care 
about.  Oh,  Gemma,  you  are  not  looking — -just 
see  those  beautiful  children  up  there,  all  in  the 
marble,  with  the  white  flowers !  And  where  is 
the  mark  of  the  man's  hand  that  was  cut  off  for 
sacrilege,  you  remember  ?  Teresina  has  told  us 
about  it  so  often  ! — it  was  thrown  up  in  the  au% 
you  know,  and  the  blood  of  it  made  a  spot  like  an 
open  palm  on  the  grey  wall  up  above,  that  is 
always,  always  there ;  onty  surely  the  angels 
might  wash  it  out  noiv ;  he  must  have  suffered  so 
much,  and  been  so  sorry  by  this  !  " 

And  Signa,  trembling  at  his  own  vivid  imagina- 
tions, stood  still,  gazing  up  and  trying  to  see  the 
blood-stain  amongst  the  black  and  green  serpen- 
tine of  the  inlaying  above  Lucca  della  Kobbia's 
Virgin,  with  her  S.  Stephen  and  S.  Lawrence. 
The  story  was  so  real  to  him,  he  could  see  the 
wicked  monk  going  round  and  round  in  the 
aisles,  in  the  dark,  with  his  stolen  treasure,  un- 
able to  find  his  way  out,  and  believing  himself  on 

VOL.  I.  Z 


338  SIGNA. 


the  road  to  his  own  monaster}^,  and  so  striking  on 
the  panels  of  the  great  door,  and  crying  "  Open, 
open ! "  and  thus  calling  down  detection  and 
chastisement  with  his  own  voice.  He  could  see 
it  all,  and  he  stood  gazing  up  and  looking  for  the 
blood-stain  above  Donatello's  happy  snow  white 
children,  till  he  trembled  all  over  with  the  awe 
and  fever  of  his  own  visions.  G-emma,  not 
heeding  at  all  and  quite  indifferent  to  the  sacred 
girdle,  since  it  was  nothing  pretty  to  put  on  her- 
self, sniffed  with  her  dainty  little  nose  the  various 
fumes  of  frying  and  stewing  that  came  from  the 
open  doors  and  windows  of  the  houses  in  the 
square,  and  decided  wdth  herself  that  it  was  high 
time  to  get  something  more  to  eat. 

It  was  noon,  and  breakfast  was  being  prepared 
everywhere,  and  a  shoe  of  smoking  kid  or  a  taste 
of  boar  stuffed  with  prunes  were  more  to  her 
taste  than  all  the  stone  children  of  Donatello. 
She  had  known  what  such  damties  meant  at 
fairs  at  Signa  and  Impruneta,  whither  she  had 
occasionally  been  taken  by  kindly  baby-loving 
women  who  pitied  her  because  she  had  no 
mother. 


SIGNA.  339 


She  pondered  a  little ;  smelling  the  fragrance 
of  the  soup  pots,  whilst  the  crowds  of  people  let 
loose  from  high  mass,  like  boys  from  school, 
filled  the  piazza,  laughing,  buzzing,  chattering, 
j)ushing,  loitering,  with  the  broad  bright  sky 
cloudless  above  their  heads. 

Gemma  went  and  looked  wistfully  in  at  an 
open  arched  entrance  of  a  fruit  shop ;  beyond, 
she  saw  a  kitchen  with  a  plump  motherly  woman 
in  an  orange  kerchief,  who  was  just  taking  off 
the  fire  a  frying-pan  full  of  bacon  and  lard, 
browned  and  ready  for  eating. 

"  Might  I  just  lay  my  flowers  here  in  the 
shade  one  moment  or  two,"  said  little  Gemma, 
timidly  slippmg  her  basket  on  to  the  stone  slab 
under  the  cool  wet  leaves  that  kept  the  straw- 
berries fresh.  "  Might  I  just  leave  them  here 
one  moment  with  you,  they  will  all  fade  away  in 
the  sun." 

"  Certainly,  my  pretty  one,"  said  the  woman. 
*'  But  where  do  you  want  to  go  ?  " 

Gemma  looked  very  shy  and  sad. 

"  Oiilj — to  see — to  buy — a  little  bit  of  bread, 
T  have  a  centime,  and  I  am  so  hungry — " 

z  2 


340  SIGNA. 


''  When  did  you  eat  last  ?  " 

"  Yesterday  at  noon.  Mother  is  just  dead, 
and  there  was  no  more  hread  in  the  house,  and 
no  money." 

"Poor  little  soul!"  cried  the  good  woman, 
with  her  charity  alive  in  a  second  ;  human 
charity  is  a  match  that  will  strike  light  very 
quickl}^,  only  it  will  go  out  again  very  nearly  as 
rapidly.     "  Poor  little  sweet  soul !  " 

"  It  shall  never  he  said  that  I  turned  a  hungry 
child  empty  away.  Come  in  and  eat  your  fill. 
There  is  only  my  husband ;  and  we  are  half 
famished  too,  for  there  has  been  no  getting  a 
mouthful  were  it  ever  so,  so  busy  as  this  morn- 
ing has  been ;  there  is  scarce  a  stalk  of  fruit  left, 
as  you  see,  already.  Come  in,  you  pretty  morsel, 
and  eat  for  two." 

Gemma  did  eat  for  two,  taking  no  remembrance 
of  Signa  outside  by  the  cathedral  in  the  sun. 
He  was  well  enough  with  his  Donatello  and  his 
nonsense.  Meanwhile  she  stuffed  her  little  round 
mouth  full  of  crisp,  brown,  savoury  bacon,  and 
swallowed  her  little  glass  of  blue  wine,  and  picked 
as   many  bigarreau  cherries  as  she  chose,  and 


SIGN  A.  341 


touched  to  the  quick  the  hearts  of  her  host  and 
hostess,  who  were  childless. 

They  only  let  her  go  again  with  many  promises 
that  she  would  return,  which  indeed  she  gave 
willingly,  with  every  intention  of  keeping  them 
if  she  found  nothing  better  to  do.  When  she 
had  got  her  flowers  and  ran  out  again  to  look 
for  Signa,  she  could  not  find  him.  That  dis- 
mayed her,  because  he  was  her  mine  of  money. 
She  pondered  a  little,  selling  some  flowers  in 
the  square  meanwhile,  because,  as  she  reflected, 
however  sorry  one  may  be,  pence  are  not  the  less 
sweet- smelling  for  that ;  then  reasoned  with  her- 
self that  such  a  silly  as  he  would  be  sure  to  be 
inside  the  cathedral  dreammg  about  the  sacri- 
legious monk ;  and  there,  in  truth,  did  she  find 
him,  sitting  on  the  lower  step  of  the  high  altar, 
with  the  bronze  crucifix  above  him. 

Signa  was  very  pale  from  weariness  and  long 
fasting ;  but  his  eyes  were  full  of  brightness,  and 
he  was  almost  happy ;  someone  had  been  playing 
on  the  organ  somewhere  unseen,  the  church 
being  empty  and  the  custodians  dozing  in  noon- 
tide rest,  and  the  noble  silence  around  him  and 


342  SIGNA. 


the  deep  coolness  and  the  beautiful  colours  and 
fuzes  so  lulled  him,  and  yet  excited  him,  that 
he  knew  nothing  of  the  flight  of  time. 

"  Are  you  not  hungry  ?  "  said  Gemma,  patter- 
ing up  and  dipping  her  golden  head  in  half 
impudent  obeisance  before  the  altar. 

'^Hungiy?     Oh,  no!" 

The  word  seemed  to  him  almost  like  a  sacri- 
lege ;  yet  he  was  hungry,  only  he  had  no  leisure 
or  sense  for  it. 

'^I  am,"  said  Gemma,  knowing  that  her  wants 
were  the  strongest  levers  to  stir  him  into  movement. 

"Are you ?  I  am  sorry,"  said  Signa  vaguely, half 
remorsefully,  yet  almost  incapable,  in  that  beauty 
and  holiness  which  were  around  him,  of  bringing 
his  mind  wholly  to  any  ordinary  daily  thing.  "Are 
you,  dear  ?  I  am  sorry.  What  can  we  do  ?  But, 
oh,  Gemma  dear,  can  you  feel  very  hungry  in 
this  place  ?  Do  look  at  the  paintings.  Fra 
Lippi  did  them,  someone  said.  He  was  a  monk, 
I  think.  And  then  look  at  those  terrible  grey 
faces  and  the  tails  like  snakes — they  are  meant  for 
Sins,  are  they  not  ?  It  frightens  one,  and  yet  it 
is  so  beautiful,  all  of  it." 


SIGNA.  343 


Gemma  looked  with  a  sort  of  scorn  at  the 
marble  sphinxes  with  their  sei-pent  bodies  on 
Mino  da  Fiesole's  pulpit.  They  did  not  move 
her. 

"  Sins  are  pleasant.  Those  are  ugly  things," 
she  said  with  a  premature  wisdom.  "  And  I  am 
hungry.     Come  out." 

Signa  went  Hngeringiy,  reluctantly  looking 
back  into  the  calm  eyes  of  the  sphinxes,  and 
sorrowful  to  be  forced  out  of  that  solemnity  and 
stillness  into  the  noise  and  the  confusion  of  the 
fair. 

*'  How  happy  the  man  must  have  been  who 
made  all  those  things,"  he  said  to  himself,  with 
a  dim  perception  of  the  beauty  of  ages  in  which 
labour  was  done  for  sake  of  faith  and  country  and 
God's  will,  and  not  for  sake  of  gold  alone. 

Gemma  jogged  his  shoulder. 

"Do  not  go  to  sleep  !  Come  close  to  me,  and 
do  what  I  ask  you — that  is  all." 

Keeping  tight  hold  of  his  violin  and  its  bow, 
Signa  obeyed  her  ;  the  bright,  prompt,  unswerv- 
ing will  of  Gemma  always  bore  him  away  with  it, 
without  any  volition  of  his  own.    The  ascendency 


344  SiaNA. 


of  the  unscrupulous  will  tells,  in  small  lives  as 
in  great. 

She  led  him  through  the  flocking  people,  with 
the  loud  clanging  hells  and  the  hot  sunshine 
above  them. 

The  noble  brown  walls  of  Prato  shut  in  that 
.day  a  gay  and  noisy  multitude.  There  were 
unusual  attractions  in  the  way  of  shows  and 
travelling  actors.  The  country  folk  had  come 
in  from  the  plain  and  from  both  sides  of  the 
mountains.  The  copper-smelters  from  the  valley 
of  the  Bisenzio,  the  quarry-workers  from  Figlone, 
the  pottery-painters  from  Doccia,  the  straw- 
plaiters  and  red-cap  makers  of  the  town  itself, 
the  villagers  from  all  the  little  places  round 
about  for  twenty  miles  and  more,  all  had  con- 
tributed to  swell  the  sum  of  the  merrymaking 
throngs  that  put  on  their  best,  and  ate  and 
drank,  made  love  and  bought  trinkets  and  shouted 
and  sang  under  the  frown  of  the  old  Ghibelline 
Castello  and  the  prison  that  was  once  a  Guelph 
Palace.  There  were  booths  in  the  streets,  flags 
on  the  roofs,  merry  faces  at  the  old  grated  case- 
ments ;    there  was   all  the  uproar    of  lotteries* 


SIGN  A.  345 


charlatans,  cheapjohns,  and  the  players  of  puppets ; 
asses  brayed,  children  screamed,  maidens  laughed, 
mandolines  twanged,  kids  and  pigs  were  roasting 
whole  in  the  streets,  mounds  of  plums  and 
cherries  reddened  the  stones  with  their  juice, 
barrels  of  wine  ran  in  a  hundred  dark  old  kitchens 
and  at  many  a  quaint  corner  under  a  terra-cotta 
shrine  in  the  wall ;  and  above  all  the  happy 
breathless  turmoil  rose  bell-tower  and  cupola  and 
fortress  and  monastery,  and  above  them  again 
the  fair  blue  sky. 

Gemma  shpped  in  amongst  the  multitude, 
keeping  one  of  Signa's  hands  in  hers. 

She  watched  her  opportunity.  There  was  a 
pause.  One  puppet-show  had  just  ended ;  the 
tombola  had  not  begun.     She  let  go  his  hand. 

'•'Play,"  she  said,  sim^^ly. 

*'  Play  !  "  echoed  Signa,  with  his  beaming  eyes 
full  of  pain.  "  Oh,  Gemma  !  how  can  I  play  ! 
so  wretched  as  I  am,  and  away  from  the  Lastra ; 
and  Bruno  hating  me,  perhaps  ;  and  Nita  blind  ; 
and  all  through  my  own  wickedness  !  " 

"  Che  !  "  said  Gemma,  with  serene  contempt ; 
*'  standing  crying  never   mended   a  broken  pot 


346  SIGNA. 


yet ;  Babbo  says  so  a  dozen  times  a  week.  I 
want  some  sweet  cakes,  and  you  have  got  to  get 
them.  How  shall  we  keep  ourselves  if  you  do 
not  play  ?     It  is  all  you  are  good  for." 

"  How  cruel  you  are  !  "  sobbed  the  boy,  his 
heart  in  revolt  at  his  little  tyrant,  yet  his  courage 
weak  against  her. 

"  Oh,  you  silly !  "  laughed  Gemma,  and  pulled 
his  curls.  "  Let  us  dance,  then — do  as  I  do — 
dance  the  saltarello  that  old  Maro  from  the 
Marches  taught  us  last  year — that  will  make  you 
merrier." 

And  Gemma  began  to  dance  herself,  in  the 
agile  lithe  postures  that  an  old  wandering  fiddler 
had  taught  to  the  children  of  the  Lastra ;  for 
Tuscany  has  no  dance  of  its  own  except  the 
droll  trescone,  which  resembles  the  hopping  of 
frogs. 

"  Dance,  and  play  the  tune  !  "  said  Gemma, 
imperiously,  looking  like  a  little  flower  blowing 
up  and  down  in  the  wind,  as  her  white  arms 
went  up  above  her  head,  and  her  small  naked 
feet  twinkled  on  the  stones. 

Signa,  by    sheer   instinct,  obeyed   her   as    a 


SIGNA.  34' 


poodle  would  have  done,  making  the  tune 
come  off  the  strings  of  his  Eusignuolo,  and 
moving  wearily  to  her  lithesome  invitation, 
his  head  hanging  down,  and  his  feet  feeling 
like  lead,  and  the  hig  tears  coursing  down  his 
cheeks. 

"  Oh,  the  little  love,  let  one  look  at  her  !  "  said 
a  woman  or  two,  and  cleared  a  space  ;  and  others 
gathered  about,  and  a  ring  was  made,  and  one 
score  of  people,  and  then  another,  and  then 
another,  gradually  grew  together,  and  watched 
Gemma  in  the  saltarello,  which  no  busked  maiden 
from  the  wet  green  woods  of  the  Marches,  and 
no  Koman  child  under  the  vinehung  loggia  of  a 
Trastevere  winehouse,  ever  danced  with  more 
spiiit  or  more  grace. 

Gemma  was  at  home  in  the  air,  like  a  butter- 
fly ;  and  untiring  she  whirled  around,  and  spm-ned 
the  pavement,  as  if  her  little  dusty  toes  had  the 
wings  of  Mercur}^ 

"  Oh,  the  beautiful  little  angel !  "  cried  the 
women,  when  at  last  she  ceased,  hot,  and  breath- 
less, and  panting,  with  all  her  yellow  hair  blown 
back ;  and  the}^  kissed  her,  and  worshipped  her, 


348  SIGNA. 


and  loaded  her  with  sweetmeats,  and  cheap 
trinkets,  and  playthings. 

Signa  stood  apart,  with  swollen  eyes  and  a 
swelling  heart. 

"  What  fun  it  is  !  "  said  Gemma  to  him,  with 
her  little  skirt  full  of  her  spoils. 

Signa  was  silent. 

^'  A  sulky  boy,"  said  the  women.  "  Is  he  j^our 
brother,  my  dear  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  he  plays  so  beautifully,"  said 
Gemma.  "  He  was  too  tired  to  dance  well. 
Play,  dear,  play  for  these  good  kind  people,  who 
have  given  us  such  lovely  things." 

The  words  were  simple,  and  she  caressed  him 
as  she  spoke,  but  in  his  ear  she  whispered : 
*'  Play,  and  get  some  money  ;  or  I  will  tell  the 
guards,  and  send  you  back  to  Lippo." 

Signa  was  helpless  in  her  hands. 

If  he  were  sent  back,  there  would  be  woe — and 
the  galleys  for  Bruno. 

He  obeyed  her,  and  drew  the  bow  across  the 
strings,  and  played  his  old  favourite  Misero 
Pargoletto,  of  Leo,  which  he  had  played  so  many 
times,  that  it  came  to  him  by  sheer  instinct  and 


SIGN  A.  349 


habit.  He  could  not  play  amiss,  even  when  he 
was  not  thinking  what  he  did,  his  hands  found 
the  true  place,  and  struck  out  the  true  music. 

Insensibl}',  the  sweet  accustomed  sounds 
soothed  him,  drove  away  his  pain,  and  calmed 
his  sense  of  desolation  and  of  danger. 

Insensibly,  he  went  on  from  one  thing  to 
another,  and  the  melody  gained  on  the  people. 
They  are  sure  judges  of  what  is  pure  and  ex- 
cellent. Their  ear  is  accurate;  their  feeling 
unerring.  The  little  figure  in  their  midst,  with 
the  sweet  and  serious  face,  and  the  small  brown 
hands,  that  moved  so  perfectly,  touched  and  won 
them.  Muledrivers,  copper  miners,  pottery- 
painters,  peasants,  townsfolk,  merrj^-makers, 
gathered  together,  and  listened  to  the  child,  till 
silence  fell  on  the  crowded  square,  and  Gemma, 
seizing  the  moment,  slipped  in  from  one  to 
another,  holding  out  her  little  empty  palm,  and 
whispering,  while  her  pockets  were  full  of  half- 
pence, and  her  ears  were  full  of  praises :  "  We 
are  so  hungry,  my  brother  and  I  !  " 


OHAPTEB  XV. 

As  it  chanced  that  clay  Bruno  heard  nothing. 
He  did  not  leave  his  fields,  the  week  being  the 
threshing  time,  and  he  having  a  man  to  help 
him  whom  he  had  to  pay,  and  being  anxious 
to  do  all  his  grain  and  stack  the  straw  entirely 
before  the  Sunday.  And  down  in  the  Lastra, 
Lippo,  whose  courage  though  not  his  wrath 
had  cooled,  found  excuse  to  go  up  to  his  sheep 
who  were  ailing,  and  got  out  of  reach  of  his 
wife's  tongue,  and  spent  the  day  in  pondering 
how  best  he  could  compass  the  getting  back  the 
money  without  rousing  the  ire  of  his  brother  too 
hotly  on  his  own  person.  He  held  Bruno  by  a 
chain  indeed,  but  he  had  a  foreboding  that  under 
too  severe  a  strain  the  chain  would  snap,  and  he 


SIGXA.  351 


repented  him  of  the  impolitic  passion  into  which 
his  wife  had  hurried  him — nine  years  of  prudence 
and  hypocrisy  had  heen  undone  in  five  minutes' 
rage  ! 

It  was  eight  in  the  evening.  There  was  red 
still  in  the  sky,  but  the  sun  had  gone  down. 
Bruno  had  set  a  torch  in  the  ring  in  the  wall  of 
his  stone  stable,  and  was  still  threshing  by  its 
light  with  the  peasant  whom  he  had  lured  to  help 
him.  Unless  they  worked  late  and  earl}^  there 
could  be  no  chance  of  finishing  the  grain  by  the 
Sunday  morning ;  and  he  wanted  it  threshed  and 
done  with,  that  he  might  have  all  his  time  for  his 
maize  and  vines,  and  begin  the  ploughing  forth- 
with. 

The  ruddy  hght  gleamed  on  and  off ;  the  flails 
rose  and  fell ;  the  floor  was  golden ;  the  walls 
were  black;  the  air  blew  in,  fragrant  with  the 
smell  of  the  meadow-mint  m  the  fields  and  the 
jessamine  that  clung  to  the  arched  doors,  and  the 
stone-pines  that  dropped  their  cones  on  the  grass 
above  where  the  hill  was  rock. 

Bruno  was  very  tired  and  hot ;  he  had  worked 
all  day  on  a  drink  of  sharp  wine  from  four  of  the 


352  SIGNA. 


morning,  and  had  only  stretched  himself  on  the 
bench  for  an  hour's  sleep  at  noon.  Nevertheless 
he  went  on  belabom^ing  the  corn  with  all  his  will, 
and  in  the  noise  of  the  flail  and  the  buzz  of  the 
chaff  about  his  ears,  he  never  heard  a  voice  call- 
ing from  outside,  coming  up  the  fields  ;  and  a 
child  was  standing  at  his  side  before  he  knew 
that  anyone  was  there. 

Then  he  left  off,  and  saw  Palma,  Gemma's  sister. 

"Do  not  come  lounging  here.  You  will  get  a 
blow  of  the  flail,"  he  said  roughly. 

"  Signa ! "  panted  Palma,  who  was  crying. 
She  had  been  crying  all  the  way  up  the  hill. 

"  If  you  want  the  boy  he  is  in  the  Lastra. 
Get  out  of  the  way." 

"Is  he  not  here?  We  were  sure  they  were 
here,"  said  Palma,  with  a  sob,  knee-deep  in  the 
tossing  straw. 

"  No,"  said  Bruno,  whirling  his  flail  about  his 
head.  "Be  off  with  you.  I  can  have  no  brats 
idling  here." 

"  But  Signa  is  lost,  and  Gemma  was  with 
him  !"  said  Palma,  with  wide  open  black  eyes  of 
abject  terror." 


SIGNA.  353 


"  Lost !  what  do  you  mean  ?  The  bo}^  is 
somewhere  in  the  Lastra,  doing  Lippo's 
work." 

"  No,"  said  Pahna,  with  a  sob.  "  They  were 
in  the  garden  at  Giovoli — very  earl}^ — Mimi  saw 
them — and  they  went  away  together — ^very  fast — 
over  the  bridge.  And  Babbo  sent  me  to  ask  you 
— he  was  sure  that  they  were  here.  But  okl 
Teresina  sa^^s  that  Signa  must  have  run  away, 
because  Lippo  and  Nita  beat  him  horribly — about 
a  fiddle — I  do  not  know — and  all  the  town  is 
talking  because  Signa  hit  Nita  in  the  eyes ;  and 
I  know  she  was  cruel  to  him  always,  only  he 
never,  never  would  tell  j^ou." 

Bruno  flung  down  his  flail  with  an  oath  that 
made  the  little  girl  tremble  where  she  stood  in 
the  gold  of  the  corn. 

"  Stay  till  I  come,  Neo,"  he  said  quickly  to  the 
contadino  working  with  him,  and  caught  his 
cloak  from  a  nail,  and  without  another  word  or  a 
glance  at  the  sobbing  child,  strode  away  through 
his  vines  in  the  twilight. 

Palma  ran  with  him  on  her  sturdy  little  legs, 
telling  him  all  she  knew,  which  was   the  same 

VOL.    I.  A   A 


354  SIGNA. 


thing  over  and  over  again.  Bruno  heard  in  un- 
broken silence. 

His  long  stride  and  the  child's  rapid  little  trot 
kept  them  even,  and  took  them  fast  into  the  road 
and  on  to  the  bridge.  At  the  entrance  of  this 
bridge  Sandro  met  them :  though  the  children 
were  always  together,  Sandro  knew  little  of  Bruno, 
and  was  afraid  of  the  little  he  did  know.  But 
the  common  bond  of  their  trouble  made  them 
friends.  He  seized  hold  of  Bruno  as  he  went  on 
to  the  bridge — 

"  Do  not  waste  time  in  the  Lastra.  He  is  not 
in  the  Lastra.  There  was  some  horrid  quarrel — 
so  they  say.  Nita  knocked  the  boy  down — all 
about  that  fiddle  and  the  quantity  of  money. 
The  boy  has  run  away,  and  my  Gemma  with  him 
— my  pretty  Uttle  Gemma  ! — and  a  minute  ago 
there  came  in  Nisio  with  his  baroccino  ;  he  has 
been  to  Prato,  and  he  says  he  saAv  them  there, 
and  thought  that  we  had  sent  them — there  is  a 
fair.  You  can  see  Nisio ;  he  is  stopping  at  the 
wineshop  just  across.  That  was  at  four  in  the 
day  he  saw  them.  The  boy  was  playing.  Will 
you  go  ?     I  do  not  see  how  I  can  go — they  will 


SIGN  A.  355 


turn  me  away  at  Giovoli  if  I  go — all  my  carna- 
tions potting  and  all  my  roses  budding — and  then 
the  goat  is  near  her  labour,  and  nothing  but  this 
child  to  see  to  her  or  to  keep  the  boys  in  order — 
and  what  the  lad  could  take  Gemma  for,  if  he 
would  run  away,  though  she  was  only  a  trouble 
in  the  house,  and  a  greedy  poppet  always, 
still—" 

Bruno,  before  half  his  words  were  done,  was 
away  over  the  bridge,  and  had  reached  the  wine- 
shop, and  had  confronted  Nisio  —  Dionisio 
Riggo,  a  chandler  and  cheesemonger  of  the 
Lastra,  who  had  a  little  bit  of  land  out  Prato 
way. 

"  You  saw — the  boy — in  Prato  ?'' 

Nisio  grinned. 

"  I  saw  Lippo's  foundling  in  Prato.  Is  that 
much  to  you  ?  Nay,  nay  !  I  meant  no  offence 
indeed.  Only  you  are  so  soft  upon  the  boy — 
people  will  talk !  Yes,  he  was  there,  playing  a 
fiddle  in  a  crowd.  And  the  little  girl  of  Sandro's 
— the  pretty  white  one — with  him.  Only  a  child's 
freak,  no  doubt.  I  thought  they  were  out  there 
for  a  holiday.     Else  I  would  have  spoken,  and 

A  A  2 


356  SIGNA. 


have  brought  them  home.  But  they  can  take  no 
harm." 

Bruno  left  him  also  without  a  word,  and  went 
on  his  way  as  swiftly  as  the  wind  up  to  the  house 
of  Lippo. 

Old  Baldo  was  working  at  a  boot  at  his  board 
before  his  door.  Lippo,  who  had  just  come  down 
from  the  hills,  was  standing  idling  and  talking 
with  his  gossip  the  barber.  His  wife  was  ironing 
linen  in  an  attic  under  the  roof,  her  eyes  none 
the  worse,  though  she  had  bound  one  up  with  a 
red  handkerchief  that  she  might  make  her  moan 
with  effect  to  the  neighbours. 

Bruno's  hand  fell  like  a  sledge-hammer  on 
his  brother's  shoulder  before  Lippo  knew  that  he 
was  nigh. 

"  What  did  you  do  to  the  boy?" 

Lippo  trembled,  and  his  jaw  fell.  People 
came  out  of  the  other  doorway.  Old  Baldo 
paused  with  his  awl  uplifted.  Children  came 
running  to  listen.  Bruno  shook  his  brother  to 
and  fro  as  the  breeze  shakes  a  cane  by  the  river. 

"  What  did  you  do  to  the  boy  ?  " 

"  I  did   nothing,"  stammered   Lippo.      "  We 


SIGNA.  357 


were  vexed — all  that  money — and  nothing  but  a 
fiddle  to  show.  That  was  natural  j^ou  know — 
only  natural  w^as  it  ?  And  then  the  child  grew  in  a 
dreadful  passion,  and  he  flew  on  my  poor  good 
Nita  like  a  little  wild  cat,  and  blinded  her — she 
is  blind  now.  That  is  all  the  truth,  and  the 
saints  are  my  testimony  !  " 

"  That  is  a  lie,  and  the  devils  are  your  spon- 
sors !"  shouted  Bruno,  till  the  shout  rang  from 
the  gateway  to  the  shrine.  "  If  harm  have  come 
to  the  child,  I  will  break  every  bone  in  your  body. 
I  go  to  find  him  first — then  I  will  come  back  and 
deal  with  you." 

He  shook  Lippo  once  more  to  and  fro,  and 
sent  him  reeling  against  the  cobbler's  board,  and 
scattered  Baldo's  boots  and  shoes  and  tools  and 
bits  of  leather  right  and  left ;  then  without  look- 
ing backward  or  heeding  the  clamour  he  had 
raised,  he  dashed  through  the  Lastra  to  get 
home,  and  fetch  money,  and  find  a  horse. 

Old  Baldo  did  not  love  his  son-in-law.  His 
daughter  had  been  taken  by  Lippo's  handsome, 
soft,  pensive  face,  and  timid  gentleness  and 
suavity  of  ways,  as  rough,  strong,  fierce-tempered 


358  SIGNA. 


women  often  are ;  and  Baldo  had  let  her  have 
her  way,  though  Lippo  had  brought  nothing  to 
the  common  purse.  It  was  a  bad  marriage  for 
Nita,  the  sole  offspring  of  the  old  cobbler,  who 
owned  the  house  he  lived  in,  and  let  some  floors 
of  it,  and  was  a  warm  man  all  the  Lastra  said, 
with  cosy  little  bits  of  money  here  and  there,  and 
morsels  of  land  even,  bought  at  bargains,  and  a 
shrewd  head  and  a  still  tongue,  so  that  he  might 
be  worth  much  more  than  even  people  fancied, 
where  he  sat  stitching  at  his  door,  with  a  red  cap 
and  a  pair  of  horn  spectacles,  and  a  wicked  old 
tongue  that  could  throw  dirt  with  any  man's  or 
woman's  either. 

Lij)po  stood  quivering,  and  almost  weeping. 

"  So  good  as  we  have  been !  "  he  moaned. 

"  You  white-hvered  cur ! "  swore  old  Baldo, 
who  had  been  toppled  off  his  stool,  and  was  wipmg 
the  dust  off  his  grey  head,  and  groping  in  the 
dark  for  his  horn  spectacles,  with  many  oaths. 
**  You  whining  ass !  Your  brother  only  serves 
you  right.  It  is  not  for  me  to  say  so.  It  is  ill 
work  washing  one's  foul  linen  in  the  town  foun- 
tain.     But   if  Bruno  break  your   neck   he   will 


SIGNA.  359 


serve  you  right — taking  liis  money  all  these  years, 
and  starving  his  brat,  and  beating  it ; — pah  !  " 

"  And  what  would  you  have  said  if  I  had 
pamj^ered  it  up  with  dainties?"  said  Lippo, 
panting  and  shivering,  and  hoping  to  heaven 
Nita's  hands  were  in  the  starch,  and  her  ears 
anywhere  than  hearkening  out  of  the  window. 

"  That  is  neither  here  nor  there,"  said  old 
Baldo,  who,  like  all  the  world,  detested  the  tio 
quoque  form  of  argument.  "  That  is  neither 
here  nor  there.  The  pasticcio  was  none  of  my 
making.  I  said  there  were  brats  too  many  in 
the  house.  But  you  have  got  good  pickings  out 
of  it,  that  is  certain  ;  and  it  is  only  a  raging  lion 
like  Bruno,  a  frank  fool,  and  a  wrathful,  and  for 
ever  eating  fire  and  being  fleeced  like  a  sheep, 
that  would  not  have  seen  through  you  all  these 
years." 

Lippo  upset  the  stall  again  by  an  excess  of  zeal 
in  searching  for  the  spectacles,  and  prayed  the 
saints,  who  favoured  him,  to  serve  him  so  that, 
ill  the  noise  of  all  the  falling  tools,  his  terrible 
father-in-law's   revelations   might   not   reach  the 


listening  barber. 


360  SIGNA. 


Eage  in,  wit  out : — Lippo  sighed  to  think  that 
his  lot  fell  for  ever  amongst  people  who  saw  not 
the  truth  and  wisdom  of  this  saying. 

He  found  the  spectacles,  and  then  gathered 
himself  together  with  a  sigh. 

"My  brother  shall  not  go  alone  to  seek  the 
boy,"  he  said,  with  gentle  courage  and  a  sigh. 
"  I  thought  the  child  was  safe  upon  the  hill,  or 

else- Harm  me  ? — oh,  no  !     Poor  Bruno  is  a 

rough  man;  but  he  owes  me  too  much — besides, 
he  is  not  bad  at  heart — oh,  no  !  Perhaps  I  was 
hasty  about  that  money.  After  all,  it  was  the 
child's.  But  when  people  are  poor,  as  we  all  are, 
and  never  taste  meat  hardly  twice  a  year,  and  so 
much  sickness  and  trouble  everywhere,  it  over- 
comes one.  So  much  money  for  a  toy ! — for, 
after  all,  an  old  lute  does-  as  well.  Tell  Nita  I 
am  gone  to  look  for  Signa,  and  may  be  out  all 
night." 

"  He  is  a  good  man,  and  it  is  a  shame  to  treat 
him  so,^'  said  the  women  at  the  doors. 

Old  Baldo  picked  up  his  waxed  thread,  and 
made  a  grimace  to  himself,  as  he  went  to  his 
work  again,  with  a  lanthorn  hung  up  above  him 


SIGNA.  361 


on  a  nail.  But  it  was  not  for  him  to  show  his 
daughter,  or  her  husband,  in  the  wrong.  Besides, 
popular  feeling,  so  far  as  it  was  represented  in 
the  lane  between  the  gateway  and  the  shrine,  was 
altogether  with  Lippo. 

He  had  struck  a  chord  that  was  sure  to  answer. 
People  who  lived  on  black  bread  and  cabbages, 
and  had  a  good  deal  of  sickness,  and  laboured 
from  red  dawn  to  wliite  moonlight  to  fill  empty 
mouths,  were  all  ready  to  resent  with  him  the 
waste  of  gold  pieces  on  a  child  and  a  fiddle. 

He  knew  the  right  key  to  turn  to  move  his 
Httle  world. 

Good  man  as  he  was,  he  went  down  the  lane 
with  an  angry  heart,  saying,  as  old  Vasari  has  it, 
things  that  are  not  in  the  mass ;  but  he  said 
them  to  himself  only,  for  he  had  a  character  to 
lose. 

Under  the  light  of  the  lamp  that  jutted  out 
from  the  east  gateway,  where  the  old  portcullis 
hangs,  he  saw  Bruno.  He  was  putting  a  little, 
rough,  short  pony  into  a  baroccino,  having  hired 
both  from  a  vintner,  whose  tavern  and  stable 
were  open  on  to  the  street. 


362  SIGNA. 


The  baroccino  was  the  common  union  of  rope 
and  bars  and  rotten  wood  and  huge  wheels,  which 
looks  as  if  it  would  be  shivered  at  a  step,  but  will 
in  truth  whirl  unbroken  over  mountain-heights, 
and  fly  unsinking  over  a  morass.  The  pony  w^as 
one  of  those  sturdy  little  beasts  which,  with  a 
collar  of  bells  and  a  head-dress  of  fox-tails,  fed 
on  straw  and  on  blows,  and  on  little  else  besides, 
will  yet  race  over  the  country  at  that  headlong, 
yet  sure-footed,  speed,  which  Tuscans  teach  their 
cattle,  heaven  knows  how.  Bruno  had  hired  both 
of  the  vintner,  to  save  the  time  that  his  return 
home  would  have  taken  him. 

The  street  was  quite  dark.  The  lamp  in  the 
gateway  shed  a  flickering  gleam  over  Bruno's  dark 
face  and  the  brass  of  the  pony's  headstall. 

Lippo's  heart  stood  still  within  him  with  fear. 
Nevertheless,  he  went  up  to  the  place.  He  had 
a  thing  to  sa}^,  and  he  knew  he  must  say  it  then 
or  never. 

"Bruno,  give  me  one  word,"  he  said,  in  a 
whisper,  touching  his  brother  on  the  arm. 

Bruno  flashed  one  glance  on  him,  and  went  on 
buckling  the  straps  of  the  harness. 


SIGN  A.  363 


"  Are  you  going  to  quarrel  with  me — about  the 
boy?" 

"  As  God  hves,  I  will  kill  you  if  haiin  come  to 
him." 

Lippo  shivered. 

"  But  if  you  find  him  safe  and  sound — boys  are 
always  safe  and  sound — do  you  mean  to  quarrel 
with  me  ? — do  you  mean  to  take  him  away  ?  ' ' 

''  If  you  have  dealt  ill  with  him,  it  will  be 
the  worse  for  3'ou." 

Lippo  knew  the  menace  that  was  in  his  brother's 
voice,  though  Brvmo  did  not  look  up  once,  nor 
leave  off  buckluig  and  strapping.  And  he  knew 
that  he  had  dealt  ill — very  ill. 

''Listen,  Bruno!  "  he  said,  coaxingly.  "He 
will  tell  you  things,  no  doubt ;  childi-en  always 
whine.  We  have  punished  him  sometimes ; — one 
must  punish  children,  or  what  would  they  be  ? 
If  you  listen,  he  will  tell  you  things,  of  course. 
Children  want  to  live  on  clover,  and  never  do  a 
stroke  of  work.' 

Bruno  freed  his  arm  from  his  brother's  hand, 
with  a  gesture  that  sent  the  strap  he  was  fasten- 
ing backward  up  into  Lippo's  face. 


364  SIGNA, 


'*  You  have  hurt  him,  and  you  have  lied,  and 
you  have  betrayed  me  and  cheated  me,"  he  said 
between  his  teeth.  "  I  know  that — I  know  that ! 
Well,  your  reckoning  will  wait — till  I  have  found 
the  child." 

Lippo's  blood  ran  very  cold.  Concealment,  he 
saw,  was  impossible  any  longer.  If  the  boy  were 
found,  he  knew  that  he  would  have  scant  mercy 
to  look  for  from  Bruno's  hands. 

''But  hear  a  word,  Bruno,"  he  said;  and  his 
voice  shook,  and  his  fingers  trembled  as  they 
clutched  at  Bruno's  cloak,  as  the  latter  took  the 
ropes  that  served  for  reins  and  put  his  foot  on 
the  step  of  the  baroccino.  "Just  a  word — -just  a 
word  only.  Will  you  take  him  away  ?  Will  you 
cease  to  pay  ?  Will  you  break  our  compact  ?  Is 
that  what  you  mean  ?  " 

Bruno  sprang  on  the  little  cart,  and  answered 
with  a  slash  of  his  whip  across  Lippo's  mouth. 

Lippo,  stung  with  the  pain  of  the  blow,  and 
goaded  by  a  laugh  that  he  caught  from  the 
vintner,  who  stood  watching  in  his  tavern  door- 
way, sprang  up  also  on  the  iron  bar  that  serves 
as  footboard  to  the  little  vehicle. 


SIGNA.  365 


"  Take  care  what  you  do !  "  he  hissed  m  his 
elder's  ear.  "  Take  care  !  If  3'ou  cease  to  pay — 
if  you  take  the  child — I  will  say  what  I  said.  I 
will  make  him  hate  you ;  I  will  tell  him  who  he 
is ;  I  wiU  tell  him  how  you  stabbed  his  mother 
at  the  fair ;  I  will  tell  him  how"  you — you — you 
left  her  alone  dead  for  the  flood  to  take  her,  and 
maybe  had  murdered  her,  for  aught  I  know. 
And  see  how  he  will  love  you  then,  and  eat  your 
bread.  Now  strike  me  again,  if  you  like.  That 
is  what  I  shall  say.  And  what  can  you  do  ? 
Tell  me  that — tell  me  that !  Now  go  and 
ride  out  all  the  night,  and  thinlv  and  choose. 
How  weak  you  are  ! — ah,  ah !  How  weak  you 
are  against  me  now  ! — how  weak,  with  all  your 
rage  !  " 

Bruno  struck  him  backward  off  the  step.  The 
pony  dashed  away  into  the  darkness.  Lippo  fell 
in  the  dust. 

When  the  tearing  noise  of  the  wheels  and  the 
hoofs  flying  away  into  the  night  over  the  stones 
had  died  away,  Lippo  lifted  his  head  to  the 
vintner,  who  had  raised  him  from  the  ground, 
and  had  poured  some  wine  into  his  mouth. 


36(5  SIGNA. 


"  Good  friend,"  said  gentle  Lippo,  with  falter- 
ing breath,  wiping  the  dust  and  a  little  blood 
from  his  forehead  ;  "  good  friend,  say  nothing  of 
this — it  would  only  bring  trouble  on  Bruno.  I 
would  have  gone  with  him  to  find  the  boy,  but 
you  saw  w^hat  his  passion  was.  He  thinks  me  to 
blame  ;  perhaps  I  was.  So  much  money  thrown 
away  on  a  toy  of  music  for  a  child,  when  a  pipe 
cut  in  the  fields  does  as  well,  and  it  might  have 
been  laid  aside  for  his  manhood  !  And  so  much 
want  as  there  is  in  the  world  !  But  never  mind 
that ;  say  I  was  wrong — only  do  not  tell  people 
of  Bruno.  You  know  he  is  brawling  always, 
and  that  gets  him  a  bad  name  ;  and  not  for 
paradise  would  I  add  to  it.  He  is  too  quick 
with  his  hands,  and  will  take  life,  I  always  fear, 
one  day ;  but  this  was  an  accident — a  pure  acci- 
dent only !  Oh,  I  am  well — quite  well ;  not  hurt 
at  all.     And  your  wine  is  so  pure  and  good." 

And  he  drank  a  little  more  of  it,  and  then 
went  away  home  ;  and  the  vintner  watched  him, 
going  feebly,  as  one  bruised  and  shaken  would 
do  ;  and  shook  his  head,  and  said  to  three  or 
four  others  who  came  in  for  a  flask  and  a  turn  at 


SIGN  A.  36^ 


dominoes,  that  that  beast  Bruno  had  well-nigh 
killed  his  brother  and  driven  over  him ;  and  that 
it  would  be  well  to  give  a  hint  of  the  story  to  the 
Carabineers  when  they  should  next  come  by 
looking  after  bad  men  and  perilous  tempers. 


END    OF    VOL.    I. 


BRADBURY,   AGNE-SV,    &   CO.,    PRINTERS     WHITEFRIARS 


